This Storied Stradivarius Violin Made in 1714 Just Sold for Over $11 Million at Auction
The instrument was owned by a notable 19th-century Hungarian violinist
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A violin handcrafted in 1714 by Antonio Stradivari, the famous Italian luthier, has been sold for $11.25 million by Boston’s New England Conservatory (NEC) at a Sotheby’s auction. The music school will use the proceeds from the storied violin’s sale to create a new scholarship opportunity for students.
“After years of individual use by our students, now, we can establish the largest named student scholarship program in the history of NEC, honoring our mission to educate and train the next generation of musicians,” says Andrea Kalyn, president of the New England Conservatory, in a statement from the auction house. “While it has been a privilege to have one of the world’s finest violins, this sale will be transformational for our students.”
The instrument, known as the “Joachim-Ma” Stradivarius, is named for two of its most famous owners, violinists Joseph Joachim of Hungary and Si-Hon Ma of China. When Ma died in 2009, his estate gifted the violin to the New England Conservatory.
Stradivari made this violin—with maple and spruce woods and a rich red varnish—during his “golden period,” the quality peak of his crafting career. Born around 1644 in Cremona, Italy, Stradivari began producing his own instruments when he was 22 years old. Though he made cellos and violas, as well, his violin-making techniques were what made him famous. As Stradivari historian Toby Faber writes for Sotheby’s, Stradivarius violins have “no modern equivalents.” Continuously coveted and played for over three centuries, “they are without parallels in any other field of human endeavor.”
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Joachim bought the recently-sold violin in the mid-19th century, when he was only 18 years old. The musician “almost certainly” played the instrument at the 1879 premiere of Johannes Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major, conducted by Brahms himself, per the statement. Simin Ganatra, chair of the strings department at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, tells the New York Times’ Javier C. Hernández that the violin’s Joachim connection adds major value.
“For a musician to play the instrument he once played is a magical experience and something you really cannot put a price on,” Ganatra says.
The instrument’s other namesake, Ma, was not only a violinist and teacher, but the inventor of the Sihon mute, an improved device for dampening a violin’s sound which doesn’t have to be removed when not in use. Born near Canton, China, in 1925, Ma immigrated to the United States and worked as a musician in New York for decades—performing on the Stradivarius, which he purchased with the proceeds from his invention.
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As Smithsonian magazine’s Ella Feldman reported last December, the Joachim-Ma was initially projected to fetch between $12 and $18 million, which would have made it the most expensive musical instrument ever auctioned. Its winning bid—$10 million from an anonymous buyer ($11.25 million with fees)—fell short of the record: That still belongs to the “Lady Blunt” Stradivarius, which sold for $15.9 million in 2011.
Kalyn tells the Times that just four students of the New England Conservatory have used the Joachim-Ma Stradivarius in the past decade, each for a year or two.
“Now we really have the chance to have it benefit so many more students—generations of students to come,” she says. “It’s really about what’s the most powerful use of the instrument.”
