Identifier: violinmakingasit1885hero (find matches)
Title: Violin-making, as it was and is : being a historical, theoretical, and practical treatise on the science and art of violin-making, for the use of violin makers and players, amateur and professional
Year: 1885 (1880s)
Authors: Heron-Allen, Edward, 1861-1943
Subjects: Violin Violin
Publisher: London : Ward, Lock
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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Text Appearing Before Image:
, G the fanciful element. D and G are,however, probably near the actual gross-geig bow. In Fig.58, A, D and c representing fiction, B and E may be said torepresent fact, in the form of the double-bass and viol bowsof the period. In Fig. 59 we reach certain evidence, f and Gbeing the last relics (as far as we are concerned) of that artisticimagination which always has, and always will stand in the way ofthe antiquary who searches after truth. And so by progressivestages we are brought to Figs. 60, 61, and 62, the last points in thehistory of the bow. These are all absolutely faithful diagrams ofthe existing bows taken from contemporary and reliable authors. It is now that we see the nut minutely delineated for thefirst time, though it must not be supposed that it was a recentintroduction. It is difficult to say where the nut was first intro-duced. M. Fetis is of opinion that it owes its origin to the east,and cites as evidence in his Antoine Stradivari (vide note 2, p. 37), THE BOW. 93
Text Appearing After Image:
Fig. 60.—Bows of the Seventeenth Century. A, B, C, and D from M. Mersennue,Traits dHarmonie Universale, 1627. E, F. from C. Simpson, TheDivision Viol, 1667. G, H, from M. Praetorius, Theatrum Instrumen-torum, 1620. an Arabian MS. of the time of the first Caliphs, whichdepicts a bow with a fixed nut. He quotes also a bowof his own, made of cherry-wood at Bagdad, with aproperly constructed head and nut to receive the hair,the nut fitting into a notch in the stick. The nut we see in Fig. 60 is in all cases fixed ; brepresents perhaps the most ornate bow of the century, and E and F are most interesting as coming from an instruction 94 violin-making: as it was and is. book for the viol da gamba.1 B, which shows the holdingof the bow, is of the actual size of the picture from which itis reduced. G brings us apparently very near the modernbow, but is too small to be very useful as a representation.H introduces us again to the contrabass bow, and shows uswe were right to accept as reliable

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