“The Italian varnish is a permanent topic for debate…
between those who are interested and those who resolved it.”
A lifetime study
Since the beginning of my work as a violin maker, the varnish technique and its impact on an instrument’s aesthetics and acoustics is questioning me.
One of our biggest achievements in this domain certainly is the rediscovery of Stradivari’s dichroism secret..
Stradivari’s dichroism
One of the main peculiarities of Stradivari’s varnishes is the dichroism. This means that the violin’s color will change, depending on the light’s angle on it. We succeeded in reproducing to the identical this effect on our violins.
Above are presented two couples of violins.
The light ones to the left and the dark ones to the right. Each couple is formed by one Stradivari and one Girardin. As the light comes from the right, the light violins are even lighter than in objective reality.
Above, the lighter violin’s couple has been placed to the right (in the shadow) and the darker violin’s couple took place in the light. We can observe that now all have almost the same color.
The Girardin react identically to the light as the Stradivari do.
Can you differentiate the Girardin and the Stradivari?
Answer here
On the first picture, violins are disposed as followed:
Girardin – Stradivari – Girardin – Stradivari
On the second picture, Stradivariuses are in the center and girardins are on the sides.
Discovery of “the Secret of Stradivarius” in 2009
A German-French team of 12 experts (chemists, violinmakers, restorers) examined attentively five violins of Antonio Stradivari which are preserved in the “Cité de la Musique” of Paris. They published their study in the prestigious German scientific review for chemistry “Angewandte Chemie” (international edition).
… And here is the recipe
This varnish so often described as the only reason of the superiority of Stradivari consists of two fine layers. The first one is a layer based on oil, followed by a second one, which is a mixture of oil and pine resin into which Stradivarius incorporated various pigments used in painting, to vary the color. And that is all!
See below two links that retrace this event.
Personal Considerations on Varnishes (2 articles)
THE COLOR OF THE VARNISH AND THE BACKS OF STRADIVARIUS
Personal Considerations on: THE COLOR OF THE VARNISH AND THE BACKS OF STRADIVARIUSThe VarnishAntonio Stradivari's...
What do ancients say?
Ancient RecipesItalian varnish has always fascinated violinmakers and musicians, It still makes us dream and...