A rare copy of the world’s most famous Stradivarius violin was sold at auction in New York on Thursday for 15.34 million US dollars (19.59 million Canadian dollars) which is less than the record for such an instrument, a specialist company Tarisio announced.
The violin, made in 1714 by master Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737), was owned for nearly 40 years by the Russian-American virtuoso Toscha Seidel (1899-1962), who played it on the soundtrack of Mage of Oz (1939), a Hollywood classic.
Seidel was also a teacher of Albert Einstein. So this violin found itself side by side with the great mathematical scientist as they played quartets at Albert’s home in Princeton, New Jersey.Jason Price, founder and director of Tarisio, told AFP on Friday at the site of the company specializing in the sale of rare instruments.
Toscha Seidel, who immigrated to the United States in the 1930s, and Albert Einstein, who fled the Nazi regime, took part in a concert in New York in 1933 in support of Jewish scientists who left Germany.
An extraordinary instrument
Of the thousand instruments made by the luthier of Cremona, there are still about 600 listed today.
Many in the museum, others in the foundations, will not be sold. Of the survivors, there are some known as examples of the golden age, which were approximately between 1710 and 1720. And these are, for the most part, the most liked and appreciated.explained Jason Price.
The violin belongs to the Munetsugu collection in Japan. The Tarisio house has no indication of buyer.
The auction record began in 2011, when a Stradivarius was named Lady Blunt – due to being owned by Lady Anne Blunt, granddaughter of the poet Lord Byron – was sold for 15.89 million US dollars (20.29 million Canadian dollars) in London.
In 2014, another copy, whose minimum price was set at 45 million US dollars (57.47 million Canadian dollars), did not find a buyer at Sotheby’s.
France Media Agency
France Media Agency
Source: Radio-Canada
