A violin by Antonio Stradivari

For many years the 1713 ‘ex-Pingrillé’ Stradivari belonged to Mr d’Émonville, a French amateur who owned it until his death in 1881, at which point it was sold at the Hotel Drouot in Paris to “Mr Silvestre & Mr Chanot”. Silvestre & Chanot are thought to have sold the violin to Adrien Mithouard, President of the Paris City Council, whose wife sat for Renoir in 1892. Renoir’s painting of Mme Mithouard was sold at Christies in 2003 for over £1,000,000.

Mithouard subsequently sold the violin to Mr Pingrillé, from whom it received its name. Hill & Sons described Mr Pingrillé as an excellent old amateur who was passionately fond of fiddle-making. He is thought to have made around a dozen copies of the ‘ex-Pingrillé’ himself.

Carmell, who studied at Julliard as a protégé of Fritz Kreisler, was a violin prodigy. He played under some of the great 20th century conductors, including Toscanini, Stokowski, Pablo Casals, and Beecham, as well as on pop recordings with Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, and Sarah Vaughan.

Carmell sold the ‘ex-Pingrillé’ to Gabriel Banat, a Romanian-American violinist, in 1979. Born Gábor Bánát, he decided on the stage name Gabriel Banat before travelling to America after WWII. There he played concerts with Nathan Milstein and was a member of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Pierre Boulez. Banat sold the ‘ex-Pingrillé’ privately to its current owner through Sotheby’s in 2011.