A cello by Antonio Stradivari

The 1689 ‘ex-Archinto’ cello is thought to have been commissioned by Giuseppe Archinto, an Italian diplomat and cardinal, and the Archbishop of Milan for 13 years. The cello remained within the Archinto family, the first documented owner being Count Luigi Archinto in 1805. Following his death in 1821, the instrument passed to his son, Count Giuseppe Archinto, who eventually gifted it to the Archinto Museum. In circa 1861, the cello came into the possession of Gustavo Adolfo Noseda, a composer who bought it at just 24, although he died just four or five years later. The Noseda Collection, housed at the Milan Conservatory Library, is the culmination of his work to create the largest ever Italian music archive, containing compositions from the 1500s to the 1860s. After Noseda’s death the ‘ex-Archinto’ was sold to renowned luthier Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume and swiftly acquired by Charles Willemotte of Antwerp, whose collection included approximately 15 Strads, as well as other significant instruments by Italian masters.

In 1960, Walter Lagemann of Connecticut acquired the cello and, in 1974, donated it to the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. The Richard D. Colburn Foundation, known for its dedication to fostering classical music education and performance, purchased the instrument two years later. The foundation sold the cello privately through Sotheby’s in 2007 to an anonymous U.S. collector. Currently, the “ex-Archinto” resides with the Stretton Foundation, which loans it to the accomplished cellist Pablo Ferrández, reviewed by the Los Angeles Times with this sentence: “Pop-idol magnetism, superb technique and exhilarating musicality reveal a sure star in the making”.