Musical Instruments

History
In 1971, history was made at Sotheby's in Bond Street when the 'Lady Blunt' Stradivarius of 1721 was sold for a record-breaking £84,000. In 2002 the same violin was sold privately for nearly 40 times that amount. This extraordinary result is typical of a market which has seen almost unbroken growth over the last hundred years.

Auctions
In March 2008 we held the world's most successful musical instrument auction, when the Albert Cooper Collection achieved a total of $5.7m. This sale broke 22 auction records, including £180,500 for a violin by the Venetian maker Carlo Tononi, £120,500 for a violin by Carlo Bergonzi II of Cremona and £90,500 for a violin by Pietro Giacomo Rogeri. Musical Instruments auctions are held every year in March and October in London.

Private Sales
In addition to our high profile auction business, Sotheby's also sells important musical instruments by private sale. Over the last four years we have sold instruments totalling around $40m by this method, including eight Stradivaris and five Guarneri del Gesùs. A recent highlight was the purchase of a violin by Guarneri del Gesù, ex-Vieuxtemps, by the Russian businessman and philanthropist Maxim Viktorov. The violin, which had been in the possession of the same family since about 1900, was recently played by Pinchas Zukerman at a concert in Moscow



Please click here for information about Sotheby's new book, Four Centuries of Violin Making.