Notable Sales: Antonio Stradivari | Violin, 1695
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Ex-Goetz; Hawaiian
Cremona, 1695
Bearing its original label Antonius Stradiuarius Cremonensis Faciebat Anno 1695 AS
length of back 36.2cm.
The 1695 ‘ex-Goetz; Hawaiian’ Strad violin traces its ownership through the hands of several prominent musicians, collectors, and dealers. Its earliest recorded owner, a Dutch player in the East Indies, was somewhat mysterious, though it is believed he was active in the late 19th century, likely performing in the colonial regions of the East Indies. In 1878, the violin made its way to a Mr. Gonzales, a resident of The Hague and by 1890, it had passed through the hands of the renowned London firm W.E. Hill & Sons before being acquired by Emil Szymon Młynarski, a celebrated Polish violinist and founding conductor of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. His Violin Concerto in D was later popularised by Nigel Kennedy. Returning to W.E. Hill & Sons in 1897, the instrument was purchased the following year by Ludovic Goetz, a London-based violinist, whose ownership lent the violin the first part of its name.
In 1909, the Strad entered the extensive collection of Robert Bower of Minehead, Somerset, who owned no fewer than 24 Strads at the peak of his collection. Two years later, Frederick Smith of Halifax, a successful entrepreneur in wire manufacturing and a noted violin collector, acquired the instrument before quickly selling it to D.J. Brown and George Hart, influential figures in the violin trade. In 1912, it was purchased by Captain Harris S. Murray of Galashiels, who assembled an impressive collection that included five instruments by Stradivari.
By 1926, the violin had crossed the Atlantic, purchased by Jay C. Freeman for the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company in New York. In 1928, it was acquired by Rudolph Buckley in Honolulu, under whose ownership it earned the name ‘Hawaiian’. Around 1937, Dr. William Duncan McKim, a prominent Washington, D.C. physician, purchased it for his wife, Leonora, a student of Joseph Joachim and one of the first American women to achieve international fame as a concert violinist. The 1714 ‘ex-Leonora Jackson’ Strad is named after her. The ‘ex-Goetz; Hawaiian’ was subsequently sold through William Lewis & Son of Chicago to Isadore and Marion Stern in New Jersey in 1944 and then to Moennig & Son of Philadelphia in 1949.
Later in 1949, Max N. Carol purchased the instrument for his son Norman Carol, who would go on to serve as concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra for 29 years. Norman led the orchestra during its historic trip to China under Mao Zedong in 1973. In approximately 1966, it was acquired by Dr. C.F. Lester of Philadelphia and, subsequently, by Dr. Fritz Rychel, a German doctor who, with his wife, co-founded the Fritz & Margot Rychel Foundation to support music education at the Mannheim music school. The violin was finally sold anonymously by Sotheby’s in 2010 to an Israeli collector.
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