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Forms follow function: early Stradivari violin patterns

2025-11-14T10:06:00

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Unlike his contemporaries, Antonio Stradivari was trying out different violin patterns from the start of his career as a luthier. Philip Ihle examines a number of his early violins to discover how his art evolved

What violin patterns did Antonio Stradivari use at the start of his violin making career and how are they related to the Amati workshop that was dominating the trade at the time? For the research presented here, I have compared all the 46 earliest violins featuring in volumes I–VIII of Antonius Stradivarius, published by Jost Thöne Verlag with photography by Jan Röhrmann. This publication features nearly half of the 650 surviving instruments by Antonio Stradivari. The findings of this research are based exclusively on this selection of 46 violins…

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