Biography

One of the outstanding violin-makers of the old-Amsterdam School. Unlike H. Jacobs, he was not a follower of Nicolo Amati, but had a style of his own. It is a pity that, like in the case of C. Kleynman, his work is nowadays often mistaken for that of Jacobs.
His conceptoin is bolder than that of Jacobs. Corners are a little and the purfling is consequently somewhat wider. His varnish is definitely not inferior to that of Jacobs. The sound-holes are placed close to the purfling. Typical feature of his violins is the rather "flat breast" between the sound-holes. This is qiute a deviation fron Jacobs' execution of this section of the top. Van der Sijde ranks amongst the finest and most individual Dutch makers the 17th century.

From: The Violin-makers of the Low Countries, by Max Möller, Amsterdam (1955)