It is made after a Joseph Rocca "Guarneri" violin made in 1854, and here's a little bit of explanation about why I chose this specific model.
The first time I used the "Alard" Rocca pattern, I was working under the guidance of master violinmaker and expert Eric Blot, in Cremona. As a freshly graduated student from the Cremona school, I had the opportunity to make a violin for Eric's workshop, since Eric was launching a "mid-price" line for his customers at that time.
Contrary to what was the common practice in town, not only was I allowed to copy his patterns and plaster casts from an original Joseph Rocca violin, but I also received help by Eric's assistant, Jan Bartos, and by Eric himself, in all the most important steps of the making. I remember Eric being very busy with the writing of his book about Piedmontese makers at that time.
After the violin was finished in white, it was Jan who varnished and set it up, because I wasn't ready to do that with the quality that Eric wanted... this doesn't mean that Eric and Jan wanted to keep it all secret, we talked about oil varnishes, lakes and rosinates quite a bit and all this information turned out to be very useful in the following years.
Eric's choice to put the apprentice's name on his workshop labels was not very common in Cremona, and it is one I appreciated very much.
More recently, I had the chance to trace the present owner of the violin via a casual encounter. I don't have any good pictures of it, unfortunately.
the violin was made after the patterns I received from Eric Blot, I just made the corners slightly longer than the original. The strong, individualistic character of J. Rocca's scrolls has always been the most difficult part to copy for me, but I tried to reproduce all the aspects that I could remember. I have used my own oil-based varnish for this one -- a yellow ground coat made by adding aloe resin to a basic colophony/mastic varnish, and four more coats of a similar orange-amber colored varnish, containing amber (indeed) and a bit of red madder lake.
Dear Eric, if you ever read this, let me say "thank you" for all you have taught me in your workshop! I hope that I'll be able to come by soon with another instrument, and show it to you.
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