Prices of stradivarius violins

Posted on | September 6, 2007

Stradivarius violins are known for being extremely famous and expensive as well. A Stradivarius violin made during the time period in which Antonio Stradivari lived is believed to be the most famous and expensive violins.

If the violin was produced in the 1680’s, it could be worth more than hundreds of thousands of dollars today, if it were to be sold. If a violin was produced during the period between the early 1700’s up until 1720, otherwise known as the “golden period,” and the violin is in good condition, it is sold at very high prices.

A violin produced during this period can be priced at over millions of dollars. Not many Stradivarius violins are sold however, for many of them are owned today by either musicians, or organizations and foundations such as the Stradivari Society. The highest price that a Stradivarius was sold for was $3,544,000, but this was merely the highest price bought at a public auction.

The bidder’s was reported to be anonymous. This violin was called the Hammer, and was produced during the golden period, in the year 1707. Before it was sold at over three million dollars, the violin’s price was estimated to be no less than 1.5 million, and no more than 2.5 million dollars.

But on May 16, 2006, the bidder bought the violin, and the bid was recorded into history as the highest price an individual has ever paid for the Stradivarius violin at a public auction. Private sales of Stradivarius violins have exceeded this price, however, so the Hammer remains merely the highest priced violin sold at a public sale.

Other sold story about old Lady of stradivarius violins

Her curves are legendary, her voice, unparalleled. And on a recent Friday at the famed Christie’s auction house in New York, this rare old “lady” sold for a record $2.03 million.

“The Lady Tennant” has been tucked under the arm or has rested on the shoulder of a privileged few over the last 300 years, and rightly so as she was born of the hands of Antonio Stradivari, one of the most famous violin makers of all time.

For centuries, collectors and musicians have marveled at her sweet sound and delicate features, but those at the auction house found new reason for admiration. The Lady Tennant set a world record as the most expensive musical instrument ever sold at auction, Christie’s officials said.

“Out of Stradivari’s whole body of work, there are maybe 60 to 80 great ones, and this is certainly one of them,” said Kerry Keane, the department head for musical instruments at the auction house.

Dennis Timashpolsky, a 19-year-old violinist at Colburn Conservatory, flew in from Los Angeles to look for a new instrument at the auction. In a crowded upstairs room, the teenager watched as a man and woman competed with an anonymous caller for the violin. The room was quiet as watchers leaned forward in their seats, their eyes darting from auctioneer to bidders.

“I could see the agony in his face when the lady bid higher,” he said. “If she got it, I was going to be like, ‘You are The Lady Tennant.’”

But the caller upped the ante, and the auctioneer’s wooden mallet came down with a slam. “Sold,” she said, as ripples of applause spread throughout the room.

Timashpolsky said the new owner is one lucky collector. The afternoon before the auction, the young violinist got a chance to play The Lady Tennant. He closed his eyes, rested his chin on the instrument and, for five or six minutes, played the third movement of Edouard Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnol for violin and orchestra.

“You can’t help but become part of it, melt into the violin,” he said.

“I’ve held plenty of violins,” Timashpolsky said, “but this time, I was thinking to myself, ‘How many decades have people been playing this? How many great violinists have played this?’ You become part of history when you pick up an instrument like that.”

Stradivari violins are in great demand because of their workmanship–the delicate corners, the perfect lines. But their history includes the names of illustrious owners, which adds cache and broadens their appeal. Of all the great Italian violin makers of the 17th and 18th century, Stradivari’s work is the most coveted, Keane said.

“It’s nothing short of miraculous what that maker achieved,” said Eric Grossman, curator of the string instrument collection at the Juilliard School in New York. “His instruments teach you how to get the sound out of them.”

The price tag of these coveted violins, though, can often place them out of reach for aspiring soloists. Fewer than 600 remain, and the previous record price for a Stradivarius was $1.78 million in 1990.

“There are a limited number of those instruments, and they can’t be re-created,” Grossman said. “People who have these instruments will loan them to extraordinarily gifted people, but it’s very rare.”

Stradivari crafted The Lady Tennant in 1699 when he was 55 years old, though it wouldn’t take on its high society name until 200 years later. The earliest record of ownership, according to Christie’s, was by a French violinist named Charles Philippe Lafont. When he died in 1839, the instrument passed on to W.E. Hill & Sons, London violin dealers who noted the importance of the instrument in “Antonio Stradivari, His Life and Work.”

In 1900, wealthy Scottish industrialist Sir Charles Tennant bought the instrument for his new wife, Marguerite Miles, an amateur violinist. Forever afterward it would be known as The Lady Tennant.

When Hill delivered the violin to Miles’ residence at 40 Grosvenor Square, he wrote a note, saying a buyer couldn’t find an instrument in a more perfect state. “Such violins never come into the saleroom nor are they offered publicly in any way,” he wrote. The fitted case in which the violin rests still carries an engraved lock plate with Lady Tennant’s name and address.

By 1937, connoisseur Max Moller of Amsterdam added the violin to his collection and included it in an exhibit the same year, which celebrated Stradivari’s bicentennial. Moller later sold the violin to Bernhard Sprengel, a collector and philanthropist in Hannover, Germany. For the past 24 years, it has been in the collection of an anonymous owner.

Grossman, who oversees a collection at Juilliard that includes three Stradivari violins, started studying the instrument at age 5. At 18, he played a Stradivari for the first time. The clarity and purity of the sound, he said, is hard to explain. Even in the softest pianissimo, the violin can be heard over an entire symphony orchestra.

“It was like nothing else I had ever put under my chin,” he recalled. “It’s not something you ever take for granted. I’m still in awe of them.”

For that reason, said Timashpolsky, The Lady Tennant deserves to be played.

“There are no scratches, just this beautiful, sweet sound,” he said. “If you’re going to keep it at home in your safe, I think that would be a crime. Let as many people play it as you can.”

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