A German Violin By Georg Adam Gutter II, 1793.

Georg Adam Gutter II (1726-1811) reportedly worked in both Markneukirchen and Neukirchen, which lies some 360 miles North West of the more famous hub for the violin trade. There is still some general confusion between the two simply due to the phonetic similarity of their names as far as who worked where is concerned, but there are a few details of marked differences in the traditions of making between them. Whereas Henley and Jalovec briefly mention  Georg Adam Gutter II as a maker in Markneukirchen, Dilworth notes that his father, Georg Adam Gutter I (1705-1757), with whom Gutter II worked is documented to have joined the Violin Making Guild of Markneukirchen in 1743 and Neukirchen’s in 1747. Indeed, there are at least 33 documented makers from the Gutter family, spanning several generations, and furthermore offering a window into what sort of connections helped facilitate both trade routes and the evolution of artistic stylizations in making through Germany in the 18th and 19th centuries.

This particular violin is a highly characteristic and excitingly well preserved example of Georg Adam Gutter II’s  work, loosely patterned after Stainer but already with flatter edge work than his earlier ouvre. It bears an original label attributing its origin to Neukirchen in 1793 and was likely intended as an affordable option - whereas the f holes were treated with great care and precision, the purfling is actually scribed to both the front and back rather than inlaid. Well selected tonewoods with a single-piece back measuring 353mm of attractive but also rather plain maple. Aside, Gutter and Neukirchen at large utilized beech as a material more commonly than anywhere except England during this era. Though, it was certainly not the norm. It boasts a voice that is at once sweet and brilliant; clear, powerful, and well seasoned, with crisp, effortless articulation and enough resistance to support lyricism through the most technical of passages.