How many real stradivari violins is in the world ?

Posted on | September 5, 2007

Since the Hills, other experts have attributed additional instruments to Stradivari, who employed the Latinized version of his name, Antonius Stradivarius, on his labels. (Scholars use either spelling interchangeably.)

Thus the accounting of existing Strads has been inching upward toward 700 or so, a number about which collectors and dealers politely debate. Because the sales of many Strads are conducted privately between a few discreet dealers and well-heeled collectors, the exact number of his surviving instruments is almost impossible to determine.

The Hills meticulously estimated that Stradivari made 1,116 stringed instruments during an extraordinary career that spanned seven decades, from about 1665, when he was 21, to the year he died at the age of 92 or 93. He was, they wrote, “an expeditious worker,” with tremendous “industry and devotion to his art.” They calculated that he was able to complete at least two violins or one cello a month, or an average of 25 violins or 10 cellos a year–and sometimes many more. In 1715, when Stradivari was 71, the king of Poland ordered 12 violins from him and sent his director of court music to Cremona to await completion of the instruments. The king received all 12 in three months.

Sathya Sai Baba tells:

“There should be enquiry into ideal leaders of the past. Ideal means following morality and truth without giving up integrity. Such examples are Rama, Krishna and Jesus. Other ideal leaders in history are Socrates, Alexander the Great, Marco Polo, Antony Stradivarius, George Washington and Florence Nightingale. All these lives show selflessness in pursuit of a greater vision for humanity. By enquiring into the lives of ideal leaders and managers their qualities are reflected in our lives.”

Antonio Stradivari had a way with his violins - a way that has never been duplicated. Although his instruments date from 1666 to 1737, violin makers around the world have since tried to at least come close to reproducing the legendary sound that only a Stradivarius can purportedly make. Antonio Stradivarius probably never wrote a sermon, probably never translated a scripture or expounded on a gospel. Yet, he illustrated that “Work is Worship, duty is God”.

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