Concerning the colour or variety of tints adopted by Stradivari at most times, it was most likely done to the requirements of his different patrons, many having a desire for the rich orange, some, the light red or "cherry" tint, while others were not content with any than the red or rich full bodied port wine tint. The simple brown seems to have been less in demand, as it is during the period under consideration, rather exceptional. While using the lustrous coverings for his works with consummate skill, there is one qualification that must not be lost sight of. Beautiful, refined and artistic in the strictest sense of the term, Stradivari never gave way to a desire to outbid the rest of the fraternity for congratulations in respect of gorgeousness, he seems never to have fallen back upon his reserves in the direction of intensity of colour. Thus if a finely preserved specimen of his orange varnish is viewed side by side with one by Joseph Guarnerius, I.H.S., the extra degree of fieriness will be on the side of the latter, but it by no means places Stradivari on a lower level, as the combined qualities of his work, taken as a sum total, is not reached by any liutaro of old Italy. It may be fairly taken as certain that if there was any master having at command all the necessaries for turning out musical instruments of matchless superiority, both as to acoustical and artistic qualities, it was Stradivari, and many connoisseurs would expect to find nothing but maple used of the richest curl, and that would throw up with delightful effect the lustrous varnish so carefully laid upon it; but, strangely enough, his most magnificently curled backs and sides are mixed with a few that are comparatively plain. A variety of reasons might be assigned for this, but that which bears the greatest probability about it is--that the instruments being chiefly made to order, the maple of richest curl was not always to be had, at least in time for the construction as required. In other respects these plainer mapled instruments are fully equal to anything that came from his hands. Of the proper tone-giving pine he seems never to have been short; there it is, always of beautiful growth, having, like his own handiwork, both delicacy and strength and of a general appearance such as would attract the eye of the veriest tyro in the liutaro's art. How many imitators of the great manipulator have looked at this growth of pine and wondered where the old master obtained it! and how he knew that it possessed the proper qualifications for his purpose. Swiss pine of course! obtained from the lower parts of the forests of the Alps, is an immediate loud response, and cut only from the south or sunniest side of the particular tree when found of course.