Stradivarius hits $15.3 million in online auction
NewsThe 1714 ‘da Vinci’ Stradivarius violin, once owned by the virtuoso Toscha Seidel, was sold last night by the Tarisio auction house for $15.34m. Seidel is reported to have played it on the soundtrack of The Wizard of Oz.
This is the second highest auction sale of a Strad. The record is held by the ‘Lady Blunt’ Stradivarius violin, which Tarisio sold in 2011 for $15.9m.
This may indicate a slight cooling of Strad prices.
You can hear the instrument very well in this live performance from the Hollywood Bowl:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW9s665oS9I
Interesting historic recording, thank you for the link. But I don‘t think you can hear the instrument well enough to asess its quality.
You’re right that it’s an old recording. There isn’t (to my knowledge) any other recordings of Seidel playing “Classical” repertoire so it’s a nice opportunity to hear the way he phrases etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7jQhgugrxk This Brahms Sonata is from 1931, so Seidel is likely playing on the da Vinci Strad.
Has it been in the hands of any other player of note in the 60 years since Seidel’s death?
Only $15 million? It was expected to go for twenty.
Well, you could have bid higher Robert.
Yeah, these fiddles are getting cheap…
(I see myself out…)
Incorrect. The Lady Blunt is a museum piece, the Da Vinci is a violin that has been played extensively in concert/recordings etc. Further more, the Lady Blunt was sold to support the victims of the Fukushima disaster in 2011 and the Da Vinci was just sold for the sake of a sale. Prices are anything but cooling off in the instrument trade.
The Lady Blunt enjoyed the benefit of enormous publicity prior to her sale.
She was exhibited as part of the exceptional Stradivarius exhibition in Oxford at the Ashmolean and pitched, effectively, as a twin instrument to the Messiah – ie: in an exceptional state of preservation.
Context is everything:
The 2011 auction of the ‘Lady Blunt’ Strad was also a donation by the Nippon Foundation to raise charitable funds after the catastrophic 2011 earthquake and tsunami, so that certainly contributed, and at the time was promoted as the most well-preserved Strad to go up for sale in a century.
It should also be noted: Not all Strads are of the same quality or provenance. I imagine, with the exception of the ‘Messiah’ (*Vuillaume ?) and a few others, a good del Gesu would beat most Strads in sale price.
As a working professional string player, it feels disheartening that the prices of famous violins as they continue to rise to astronomical levels: because these sales help drive up the whole market, putting high quality instruments ever more out of reach of the present and next generations of orchestra and chamber musicians, college professors, etc. I’m all set for equipment, but feel the pain of my young colleagues.