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Violin by Alex Urquhart, Invergordon, 1898
This violin has now sold.
About Alex Urquhart
Alexander Urquhart was born in 1867 in the pretty village of Resolis, Ross-Shire. Alexander´s father, John, was a grocer and shoemaker in the nearby town of Invergordon, employing two others in his firm. By 1891, Alexander was living in Invergordon and working as a bootmaker. Urquhart died on the 27th of December 1941: his gravestone gives his profession as bootmaker.
Alex Urquhart is important as a great example a craftsman turned violin maker, a common Scottish phenomenon. In a country dominated by fiddle music, amateur makers with excellent practical skills abound. It is not at all clear where Urquhart got his inspiration as a maker: we are not aware of any contemporaneous makers nearby.
About the violin
The violin was made in Invergordon in 1898 and is a cracking example of an amateur Scottish maker´s work! It is a personal model and very successful.
The violin has a one piece back of beautiful birds eye maple with ribs and scroll to match. Very unusually, the neck is also of the same wood: birds eye maple is very difficult to work with and so seeing it used for a neck is very rare! The front is two pieces of fairly wide-grained spruce.
The violin has a length of back of 357 mm.
How does it sound?
This is is a very interesting violin as it´s entirely without edge: you can push the sound as far as you like without it losing any quality of tone. It´s warm, generous and responsive, a real pleasure to play.
Condition
The violin is in excellent condition and bears its original label.