A violin by Antonio Stradivari

The 1723 ‘ex-Emiliani’ was first owned by James Goding before he sold it to William Davis in 1839. The instrument was bought from Davis by Cesare Emiliani, from whom it received its name, in the 1840s and he owned it until circa 1850, when it was sold to Mr Cookson of Lancashire. Mr Cookson owned the violin for nearly 50 years until it was bought by George Hart, a luthier whose father, also called George, had been an important 19th century violin dealer in London. Hart sold the ‘ex-Emiliani’ to Mrs March-Phillipps in 1903, who passed it to C Gunder Hedstroem of Stockholm.

Rembert Wurlitzer bought the violin in 1951 and sold it 10 years later to Peter Marsh through Frank Passa. Passa studied bow making under Emile Ouchard and is known for producing bows of fine quality. Peter Marsh, an American violinist and violist known for playing first violin for the Lenox Quartet, owned the ‘ex-Emiliani’ until 1972, when it was bought by an anonymous collector and loaned to Andrew Jennings of Nantucket, Massachusetts.

The ‘ex-Emiliani’ was stolen from the guest house where Jennings was staying while on tour with the Concord String Quartet in 1982 and a substantial reward was offered in the New York Times for its safe return. Less than a month later it was found among unclaimed baggage at Martha’s Vineyard ferry terminal, where it is thought to have been abandoned because of the publicity it had garnered.

Stefan Hersh bought the violin in 1989 and sold it privately through Sotheby’s to the Leif Høegh foundation in 2007, from whom it was loaned to Marianne Thorsen, leader of the Nash ensemble until 2015.