A violin made via the famed Antonio Stradivari in 1714 has the prospective to change into the costliest musical tool ever offered when it is going up for public sale Friday at Sotheby’s in New York.
The public sale home is estimating the price of the “Joachim-Ma Stradivarius” at $12 million to $18 million. If it sells on the best finish of that vary, it will highest the $15.9 million paid in 2011 for every other Stradivarius, the “Girl Blunt,” made in 1721 and named via Guinness Global Data as the costliest tool ever offered at public sale.
ANGELA WEISS / AFP by the use of Getty Pictures
Mari-Claudia Jimenez, Sotheby’s Americas president and head of world industry, mentioned Stradivari made the violin all over his “Golden Length,” which started round 1700 and used to be marked via an development in his craftmanship.
“So that is the height of his output,” Jimenez mentioned. “That is the most efficient violin of this period.”
Sotheby’s says the violin’s preservation is outstanding and its possession historical past bizarre.
It is named for 2 of its famed homeowners – violin virtuosos Joseph Joachim of Hungary, who lived from 1831 to 1907, and Si-Hon Ma, who used to be born in China in 1926, moved to the U.S. in 1948 and died in 2009.
It is believed that mythical composer Johannes Brahms used to be influenced via the Joachim-Ma when he wrote his “Violin Concerto in D Primary” as a result of its wealthy, resonant tone, and that Joachim performed that violin all over the concerto’s 1879 premiere, consistent with Sotheby’s.
Ma bought the violin in 1969 and his property proficient it to the New England Conservatory in Boston after his loss of life. Ma attended the conservatory, the place he earned a grasp’s stage in 1950. The conservatory is now placing the violin up for public sale, with all of the proceeds going to pupil scholarships.Â
