Cremona Society

[1] The Society was named after the Cremona region of Italy which had a long tradition of violin making, and from which some the greatest stringed instrument makers such as Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri had come.

The typical format for the monthly meeting was a lecture presenting a paper, often on some technical aspect of violin making.

The speaker informed the audience that the difference between the so-called hard and soft varnishes was not in the materials, but in the way that the gum had liquid added to it when in solution.

[12] His love of music could be seen in his home life, where he repeatedly played scales to his daughter Cecilia at two years of age so that she could develop perfect pitch.

He was also known as Joseph Guarnerius and by the sobriquet of del Gesù (of Jesus) because he began to add a religious symbol after his name 1739.

[16] The event was also announced in The Academy with the information that the renowned cellist and teacher Herbert Walenn would play the instrument.

Petherick's position as an expert on del Gesù was established by his having published a book on his work in press at the time.

[22] However, before The Strad could report on the meeting, Truth, a British weekly known for exposing frauds of all kinds, ran a series of columns on the cello and on the Cremona Society: In The Strad's September 1906 edition there was a letter from F. W. Chanot defending the art dealers in general and saying that so little was known of del Gesù's early life "that it would be rash to say absolutely that he never made a cello".

[28] The only further comment on the matter was a letter in the October Strad from J. W. Adamson, saying that he had once owned a violoncello by del Gesù but had sold it and was wondering if this was the instrument in question.

Dr. Hitchcock bought a violin certified by Horace Petherick to be the work of Petrus Guarnerius (there were two such luthiers: one the uncle of del Gesù and the other his brother - the media coverage does not make clear which).

The media coverage expressed amusement that the certificate from Petherick was written on parchment "presumably to add fictitious importance to an otherwise worthless document".

[37] The assessment of Chevalet on the case was that the results of the trial should dispose once and for all of Mr Cooper's firm and of "the self-styled expert" Peterick.

The Strad printed no more Cremona Society columns after June 1908, when Cooper lost the fraud case.