86

ALESSANDROGAGLIANO

"ROTONDO"' 1710

Roger Hargrave examines a striking example by the early 18th century maker

Alesandro Gagliano.Photographs: Stewart Pollens

Alessandro Gagliano worked in Naples from about1700 to 1735. He is the first recorded Neapolitan vio-lin maker, his work is relatively rare and it is notknown where he learned his trade. Whilst he wasclearly an individualist, his instruments display manyfeatures which indicate a close association with thevery best northern Italian traditions. Only his occa-sional eccentricities and his obvious lack of attentionto detail prevent him from ranking alongside thefinest Cremonese makers. He seems to have reservedhis best efforts for his cellos, of which only a very fewsurvive. Apart from these, the quality of his crafts-manship seldom rose to above average. NeverthelessAlessandro is a maker of great charm and also one ofconsiderable mystery and importance.

It is something of a mixed blessing that whilstAlessandro's descendants appear to have ignoredsome of his more endearing features, his lesser qual-ities were generally improved upon. So it was that hissons, Nicola and Gennaro, worked in a cleaner, moreorthodox manner (usually after Stradivari or occa-sionally Amati) while at the same time they stoppedusing the beautiful varnish, which had transformedAlessandro's often mediocre works into minor mas-terpieces. Although Alessandro probably founded theNeapolitan school is was mainly his sons, especiallyNicolo, who set the trends which the others were tofollow.

The violin pictured here is called the "Rotondo". Itis the finest known example of Alessandro Gagliano'swork The photographs clearly show a spectacular

piece of back wood, contrasting strangely with thefinely figured ribs and wild appearance of the bellywood. The initial impression is that of a compositefiddle. However even the briefest encounter with thisviolin is enough to dispel any such thoughts.

It is interesting to examine more carefully the ma-terials used by Alessandro for this violin. The onepiece back is of finely grown imported wood, per-fectly quarter sawn, with wide slashing flames de-scending from right to left the type of piece whichwould be highly sought after among violin makers.As I have already pointed out however, the ribs,whilst having their own special attraction, bear noresemblance to the back wood. The flame, which runsalmost vertically all around the instrument, is nar-row and well defined. This type of figure taken to-gether with the wider and more prominent yearrings suggests a lowland native Italian sycamore, ofthe kind often used by the Guadagnini family andsome of the other late classical makers. The headwood is very similar to that of the ribs, although ithas a velvety appearance, being cut, more or less, onthe slab.

Like the back, the belly is also made from onepieces. The year rings are very close together on thetreble side becoming, for a violin, quite wide on thebass side. In spite of this increase in the distance be-tween the rings, the winter growth remains tight andhard in appearance right across the instrument. Thebelly wood also has some quite attractive figuration,known as "hazel" in Britain, or "Bear Claw" in parts

87

of the United States. If you are dealing with Germanwood handlers it is called "Hazelfichte" and is oftena little more expensive.

The head of this violin, as may be seen from thephotographs, has a long and narrow pegbox which is.topped by a rather undersized scroll. The volutes ofthe scroll start out fairly shallow and are relativelycleanly cut, if a little uneven. The volutes increase indepth quickly around the second turn, becoming ex-tremely deep before making a sudden stop, almost infront of the tiny eyes and at least one quarter of aturn sooner than might normally be expected. Thissudden stop creates a "comma" shaped appearanceto the eyes, which in this case is more pronouncedon the left hand side of the head. Although the workof the volutes appears to be clean, the deeply cut areaaround the eyes are filled with a heavily craqueluredvarnish which might be covering a multitude of sins.Relatively deep and hurriedly applied tool marks areclearly visible on the vertical surfaces of the turns,especially in the immediate vicinity of the eyes. Someslight wear to these vertical surfaces, probably theresult of repeated polishing of the head, has removedvarnish from the high spots and has helped to ac-centuate the cruder quality of Alessandro's finishing.

The flutings around the back of the pegbox andover the front of the head are well defined. Somewear to what were probably fairly fine chamfers onlyhelps to underline how very deep these flutings musthave been originally. Under the front of the headthese flutings stop slightly short in the manner ofsome of del Gesu's work. At the chin the flutings fin-ish rather roughly in two drooping curves. Once

again it is difficult to say how well the work wascleaned up by Alessandro because of the presence ofso much thick varnish.

Viewed from behind, the whole head has a longnarrow appearance, whilst from the front the pegboxitself looks pinched and almost too tight for four pegsand a set of strings. A curious feature of the pegboxare the fine flutings which run along the top of thepegbox walls. These are deep and very narrow gougetracks, each one of which is inevitably full of thickred varnish. This kind of ornamentation was moreoften associated with lute and Gamba makers andmay be a clue to Alessandro's place of learning.

Alessandro often ornamented his pegboxes, but, sofar as I am aware, this was not a feature which hepassed on to his descendants. The peculiarly longpegbox however, with its pegholes clearly arrangedin tight pairs (G with E and D with A) and with a largegap separating each pair, was certainly a featurewhich was passed on and even exaggerated by latermembers of the family. For my eyes only the frontview of the scroll itself, ignoring the pegbox, has aCremonese "feel" to it. These front turns are quitebold and the eyes are not too wide and dominatinglike many later Gaglianos.

As is to be expected the varnish on the head isslightly darker and more heavily craquelured thanthat of the body. In form the crackle is soft globularand very thick. It is reminiscent of that found uponsome of the redder unpolished works of Josef, filiusAndrea, Guarneri.

The outline of this violin is well rounded in the

88

bouts and yet it has a slender and genuinely delicatequality. Here are the beginnings of the signs of a clas-sical, perhaps even a Cremonese influence. The cor-ners are long and elegant, trumpeting very slightlytowards the end. (This is most clearly visible on theupper left hand corner of the back.) They are similarto some of the works of G. B. Ruggieri of Brescia orAndrea Amati or his grandson Nicolo. However thecut off angle is perhaps the most remarkable featureof these corners. The top back corners especially arecut almost parallel to the vertical centre line of theinstrument. This feature instantly reminded me ofthe pure corners of the del Gesu poschet of 1735 inthe Shambach collection.

The remaining edgework is cleanly finished withfew if any tool marks, other than the usual knife cutchamfers on the underside edge, particularly in thecentre bouts. The purfling channels are pronouncedbut not very deep, with the peak lying a long wayoutside the line of the purfling itself, perhaps evenmore than two thirds of the distance towards the out-side edge. Like the finest classical instruments, thepurfling on this and all of Alessandro's instrumentshas intense black of very solid appearance. HereAlessandro's heirs did not follow the better exampleof the old man. The thin backs of the later Gaglianosare distinguished only by their tendency to expandout of the channel, causing their inferior brittle var-nishes to crack along the lines of the purfling. Theinlay work of Alessandro's purfling, though adequate,was not over fussy. The purfling mitres in contrast tothe longish corners (and corresponding long ribsmitres) are short, stubby and rather ungainly. Inplaces the three pieces of purfling have over riddeneach other, suggesting that they were glued togetherbefore being inserted into the channel. Furthermorethere seems to be more than just a little black filler ofthe type referred to by Sacconi in his "Secrets ofStradivari".

Varnish for the moment aside, on this violin byAlessandro the greatest single influence of the clas-sical school is apparent in the archings. It cannot bedescribed as Amatese, being a little too full in thebouts and not particularly high. Dare I suggest that ithas almost Stradivarian virtues, quite powerful in ap-pearance and only lacking his quality of finish. Thereare nevertheless certain Amati characteristics, no-tably around the lower soundhole wings, where thefluting is basically an integral part of the whole arch-ing, rather than having Stradivari's tendency towardsa more pronounced separate excavation.

The soundholes are typically set rather low (seemeasurements). Like the head they are extremely in-dividualistic. The top circles, very probably cut witha S mm. bit, measure 6 mm. across the arching. Thisis because the bodies of the holes curl a touch too farover the top before joining the circles, causing themto be oval on the horizontal plane. The top wings alsocurl up and over the circles. The bodies of the holessweep freely down to large bottom circles. They arequite narrow. By contrast, the soundhole nicks arebig, roughly cut gashes. The lower wings, with theirrelative position to the complete holes, their size andtheir fluting, are like drunken caricatures of the workof Nicolo Amati. The overall finish of the soundholescan at best be described as rather hasty: they balanceeach other only aesthetically and not at all geomet-rically. Despite their rough house quality the sound-holes are cut in the classical way. The top and bottomcircles do appear to have been drilled and the mainbodies of the holes are more or less cut at right anglesto the surface of the arching. As I have alreadypointed out, Alessandro could and did produce muchcleaner works: I have recently seen a cello which wasas remarkable for its craftsmanship as it was for itsiridescent orange red varnish. Indeed what makesthis particular violin so special is obviously not thecraftsmanship, nor entirely Alessandro's sponta-neous originality, of which there is an abundance, butits varnish. Over a golden, strongly dicroistic ground,lies an almost unbelievably fresh, soft, rich orangeredvarnish. Present in large amounts and laid on fairlythickly, the varnish quite simply lifts this violin andits maker Alessandro Gagliano, into the ranks of thegreat.

FOOTNOTES

'One piece bellies are not unusual and were quiteoften used by other prominent Italian makers in-cluding occasionally Stradivari. The same can also besaid for hazel figured belly wood. 2Housed at theMetropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Label wording: Alexander Gaglianus Fecit Neap.1710

THE STRAD would like to thank Geigenbau Ma-chold (Bremen) and The Violin Gallery (WashingtonD.C.) for their generous financial support and assis-tance in producing this special colour supplement.

89