Knut Eilevsson Steintjønndalen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Knut Eilevsson Steintjønndalen (1850 - 1902) was a Norwegian Hardanger fiddle maker from Bø in Telemark, Norway.
Knut Eilevsson Steintjønndalen continued the Steintjønndal tradition when his brother Jon Eilevsson Steintjønndalen left. He married and bought the farm Langkås in Folkestad-grenda (-neighbourhood) and founded a workshop there.
He experimented with making the tone more powerful by increasing the thickness of the soundboard and bottom. This feature created quite a demand for his fiddles. However, his greatest reputation came from his exquisite ornamentation on his instruments. Knut used a river pearl mussels from the river in Boe to decorate both the grip board and tailpiece. Both the varnishing and the rose decorations has not been seen before or since.
At the end of the 1800 he was considered the leading violin maker. He died at only 57 of age.
