LONDON VIOLIN AUCTION REPORT

It's a question of attribution and provenance, or so it seemed this week at the London Violin Sales.....

A violin by Carlo Bergonzi, which was apperently once in the collection of the virtuoso Nicolo Paganini (1782-1840), fetched ?568,00 (GBP) (about $1 million USD) - a record price for that maker. It is allegedly one of only fifty known violins made Bergonzi, a pupil of Stradivari. Bought from Sotheby's by the Russian lawyer Maxim Viktorov for the Moscow-based Violin Art Foundation, it will be loaned to winners of the Paganini competition, who will have the chance to play it for a year.

Other violins without provenance/authentication did not reach expectations this week, such as the violin at Christie's attrributed to Antonius and Hieronymous Amati, which failed to sell, despite the pre-sale estimate of 30,000 to 50,000 GBP, their Sanctus Seraphin attribution with a estimate of 40,000 to 60,000 and a pretty violin at Bonhams, described as being from the 'cirlce of Jacobus Stainer' c.1670 also did not attract buyers.

Bonhams however did manage to sell their Grancino family attribution at 30,000 GBP, almost reaching its 35,000 to 45,000 GBP estimate, a cello C.1740 of the Barak Norman School at 9,000 GBP, and a violin 'probably by Tomasso Balestrieri' for 12,000 GBP - although if this had been authenticated, it may well have reached almost 6 times this amount. A violin by Balastrieri (which had been 'mentioned and illustrated in Meisterwerke Italienischer Geigenbaukunst by Fridolin Hamma) at Christies fetched 60,000 GBP.

The 'star' violin at Bonhams was the instrument by J. B. Guadagnini, which reached 190,000 (including the buyer's premium) and at Christies it was the Carlo Giuseppe Testore of Milan 1697 cello reaching 288,000 GBP. Sotheby's however probably fared the best overall, (helped with the sales of violins including the Bergonzi at 568,000 GBP, a Vuillaume at 48,000 GBP, a Cuypers at 31,000 GBP, and a Montagnana at 108,000 GBP,etc) whose sales totalled over 2 million GBP.

www.musicforstrings.com