fine examples of

Classic Italian Violins

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    "ex Joachim" G.B. Guadagnini

Late period Guadagnini 1775

Concert instrument of Kathleen Lenski,   founding member "Angeles String Quartet".

(photo by L Douglas)

more detailed photos     

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"Il Cannone" Guarneri del Gesù    1743

Since 1851 property of city of Genoa, Italy -  the del Gesù owned and played by Paganini.

(photo courtesy of Il Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Italia)

alternate view    

sister violin of 1743    

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  1735 Guarneri "del Gesù"

   Transaxial CT scan (Computed Tomography) of Guarneri del Gesù violin

   thru c-bout region upper corner

(courtesy of LoenBormanandKing, Sept2005)   

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"Le Messie" Stradivari 1716                 

Housed at the Ashmolean Museum since 1939, remains unplayed, according to the provisions of its bequest.

(photo courtesy of ArjunBharioke Toronto, Ontario, Canada)

additional photos    

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     Stradivari  (date not specified)     

     Computed Tomography;
     CT scan transaxial image of a Stradivari violin
     thru the widest part of the lower bout

(Courtesy of Sirr&Waddle 19 (3): 639 -- RadioGraphics 1999)                  

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"King of Spain" Stradivari    ca. 1696

One of the decorated violins from the collection at the Palacio Real Madrid, Spain.

X-large alt. view     

alt. decorated Strad     

(photo courtesy of HÃ¥kanXauxaSvensson, Sweden)

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1669 Nicolo' Amati                          

         Matched set in the Vazquez Collection of Historical Stringed Instruments, Vienna, Austria.

(photo courtesy of the OrpheonFoundation (Liechtenstein)/ MuseumofMusical Instruments/ Vienna, Austria)

1669 additional photos    

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Nicolo Amati in 1654  

CT scan  -  transaxial image of the Amati violin                        
thru the c-bout region lower corner blocks                         

(Courtesy of Consulting Radiologists, Ltd., Dr.SteveSirr, and JohnWaddle, St.Paul MN)

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Andrea Amati   ca. 1566

Il violino "Carlo IX" di Francia-  property City of Cremona.

(photo courtesy of PeriodicoCremonaLiutaria)                                                                                                                      more photos of an Andrea Amati  

photo decorated Brothers Amati viola  

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``The Hammer'' Stradivari 1707

5/16/2006

Stradivari Violin Fetches a Record $3.54 M at Christie's N.Y.

By KatyaKazakina -

May 16,2006 (Bloomberg)- A 1707 Stradivari violin known as ``The Hammer'' sold for $3.54 million at Christie's International Plc in New York, setting a new auction record for a musical instrument of any kind.
(**see below)

The tally for the violin created by Antonio Stradivari in Cremona exceeded the presale high estimate of $2.5 million. The purchaser, who was not identified, made the winning bid by telephone.

Only 620 Stradivari violins are believed to have survived, and the last one to come up for sale, in April 2005
at Christie's N.Y., fetched $2.03 million -- a record at the time.

``The Hammer'' is named after its first recorded owner, 19th-century Swedish jeweler and collector Christian Hammer. It is considered superior in sound and craftsmanship to many other Stradivari creations because it was made ``smack in the middle of what we refer to as Stradivari's `golden period,' which was between 1700 and 1720,'' said Kerry Keane, head of Christie's musical instruments department.

The Hammer, whose back measures 14 inches long, displays the label ``Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis/Faciebat Anno 1707'' on the inside. Keane said it has a clear, bell-like sound that can be heard over an orchestra in the very back of a large concert hall.

(photo courtesy of LefterisPitarakis /AP)

Loaned to Violinist-   Since 1992, the ``Hammer'' violin has been owned by a Japanese oil company, which lent it to Japanese-born, New York-based violinist Kyoko Takezawa for 12 years. She played it at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall in New York, among other major venues, until a year ago, she said. The violin ``has sweetness, but on the other hand a very strong, concentrated sound that can penetrate big concert halls,'' Takezawa said. ``It can create a three-dimensional sound in musical interpretation.''

Before today's auction, Christie's had already realized the top four Stradivari sales. In 1990, the ``Mendelssohn'' violin, made in 1720, sold for $1.8 million, a record for its time. Also known as the ``Red Mendelssohn,'' because of its rich, red finish, it inspired the 1998 film, ``The Red Violin. In 1998, the ``Kreutzer'' from 1727 sold for $1.6 million. Two years later, the 1700 ``Taft, Ex Emil Heermann'' brought $1.3 million. Then in April 2005, the 1699 ``The Lady Tennant'' went for $2.03 million, setting the world auction record for a musical instrument.

(** The overall sale included a "Les Paul electric guitar", this set the world auction record for the highest ever musical instrument sale at $5.5m)

``Lady Tennant'' in auction at Christie's: XL here

(photo courtesy of AmandaBenson/CNS)

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"ex-Vieuxtemps" Del Gesù Breaks Auction Record

From The Times UK
February 14, 2008
DalyaAlberge, Arts Correspondent

In London a private treaty sale of the 1741 violin, was negotiated by Sotheby’s, which declined to reveal the price paid by a Russian businessman, breaking the world auction record for any musical instrument. The figure was said to be “well in excess” of the world auction record of $3.54 million, which was achieved by a Stradivari sold at Christie’s New York in 2006.

The Sotheby’s Del Gesù was once owned and adored as his “inseparable companion” by Henri Vieuxtemps, the 19th-century composer and violin prodigy who impressed Schumann with his playing. Later it remained in the same private family collection for more than 100 years.

``Prized violin plays again for Moscow's elite''

Helen Womack in Moscow
Monday March 24, 2008

Violinist Pinchas Zuckerman played the 250 year-old Guarnerius del Gesu violin during a concert in Pashkov House, Moscow, March 21 2008.

The most expensive musical instrument in the world was played in public for the first time for more than 70 years to 160 guests in Moscow on Saturday in a demonstration of Russia's growing economic and cultural status. Lawyer Maxim Viktorov invited the cream of Moscow society to the private concert at Pashkov House to show off the Guarneri del Gesù violin he bought at Sotheby's in February for a record-breaking $3.9m (nearly £2m).

The Israeli virtuoso Pinchas Zukerman performed a programme of Bach, Mozart and Bruch with the orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre. "I tried out the instrument a little in London before I bought it," said Viktorov, 35, a violin collector who likes to play to the piano accompaniment of his wife, Anastasia. "But since then, I haven't been able to touch it. This instrument cannot bear any agitation. I want the maestro, who lives by his art, to be the first to play it so that the violin feels it is receiving the respect it deserves. Then I might find the strength to play it myself because it's a great source of energy." Violins made by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù (1698-1745) are even more prized than instruments made by Antonio Stradivari, who like Guarneri worked in Cremona. The instrument bought by Viktorov was made in 1741 and later belonged to Henri Vieuxtemps, the Belgian composer and violin prodigy, who was court soloist to Tsar Alexander II. The concert was due to be repeated for a wider audience last night at the Moscow Conservatory, but on Saturday the applause for Bach's Violin Concerto in A Minor was polite; the applause for Mozart's Violin Concerto Number 5 in A Major was faint. When the familiar and rousing last movement of Max Bruch's Violin Concerto in G Minor ended, the audience clapped with considerably more enthusiasm, bringing Zukerman back to the stage for three bows. Despite his virtuosity on the venerable instrument, however, there were few shouts of "bravo", let alone a standing ovation. Referring to the relative decline of Moscow as a cultural centre in the turbulent 1990s, Viktorov said: "We need to build up the energy again so that artists who are regarded as the best in the world are seen here regularly. Modern Russia is not just about oil and gas. It's about culture, too."

Backstory

Violins by Giuseppe Guarneri (del Gesù) are rarer than those by Antonio Stradivari because only about 150 have survived, compared with 600 Strads. Viktorov prizes the del Gesù because he says it has more depth of sound. Pinchas Zuckerman normally only ever plays his own instrument, also a del Gesù, made in 1742. "I wasn't sure he would agree to play my instrument," said Viktorov. "But he took it in his hands and played for seven seconds, after which he said the last time he had that feeling was when he touched his own instrument for the first time." The violins were made within a year of each other from the same wood. "These violins are sisters," said Viktorov, "and they met again in Moscow after more than 250 years."

To help put this in perspective by contrast:

top    

• On December 6, 2007 this sculpture sold for $57.2 Million
Guennol Lioness

• On June 19, 2007 this chair sold for $913,600
"Greene & Greene Armchair"

• On June 19, 2006 a record $135 million
for this 1907 Gustav Klimt painting,
"the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer"

• In 2004 $104.1 M for Picasso's 1905
"Boy With a Pipe"