A violin by Antonio Stradivari

The ‘ex-Greffuhle’ was made in circa 1698 but lay unsold in Stradivari’s workshop until he received a commission for six violins, two violas, and a cello from Marquis de Cleri for the Spanish court in 1707. It took him two years to complete the commission, for which he used this violin, decorating the other instruments to match and changing the label to read 1709 in order to give the impression it had been made specifically for the commission.

It is unclear what happened to the ‘ex-Greffuhle’ after it arrived at the Spanish court and, as a result, the violin’s first known owner was Dr John Camidge, a talented violinist and organist at York Minster, in circa 1840. It is rumoured that Camidge bought the violin from Cardinal Philip Howard of York, however, Cardinal Howard died in 1694. It is possible, instead, that he has been mixed up with Edward Henry Howard, who would have been an Archbishop at the time of the sale, but was made a cardinal in 1877. The violin was sold, after Camidge’s death, to Willam Blow, a Yorkshireman, who gave it to his son, the Reverend William Blow, an amateur violinist and collector.

In 1875 the violin was bought by John Adam, who owned a collection consisting of at least 10 violins by Stradivari and another 6 by Giuseppe Guarneri. On the sale of the Adam collection in 1880, the ‘ex-Greffuhle’ was bought by David Laurie, another well known collector. Laurie sold the violin to Vicomte de Greffulhe in 1882 and it is by a misspelling of his name that the instrument is now known.

Greffuhle owned the violin until 1910, when it was sold to Caressa & Français, a distinguished Parisian firm doing business from 1901 to 1981, and passed from there to Hamma & Co.. Hamma had been commissioned to find a Stradivari for the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria but, after a sale could not be agreed, sold the ‘ex-Greffuhle’ to Valenti Walther of Bohemiain 1913.

Hug & Co. bought the violin from Walther in 1923 and sold it to Mrs Olga Loeser of Florence, who loaned it to Eugene Léner, a violist with the Kolisch Quartet and soloist on the violin for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1938 Mrs Loeser sold the instrument back to Hug & Co., who kept it for 24 years before it was bought by Carl E. Tannewitz, a machinery manufacturer and owner of Tannewitz Works in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1962.

Tannewitz took the violin to Sotheby’s and it was sold at auction to Jacques Français, one of the leading violin experts of the 20th century, in 1977 for $170,000. Français immediately sold the violin to Herbert Alxelrod, who donated it to the Smithsonian Institution Museum in 1998 as part of the Herbert R. Axelrod Quartet, comprising the ‘Ole Bull’ (violin), the ‘ex-Greffuhle’ (violin), the ‘Axelrod’ (viola), and the ‘Marylebone’ (cello).

The ‘ex-Greffuhle’ remains in the Smithsonian Museum today.