A 311-year-old Stradivarius violin sold for $11.25 million at Sotheby’s on Friday, in a closely watched auction that drew interest from investors, collectors and classical musicians.
The violin was made by the famed Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari in 1714, during the so-called golden period of violin making. It was later owned by one of the greatest violinists of the 19th century, the Hungarian-born virtuoso Joseph Joachim, a close associate of Johannes Brahms.
The Stradivarius was sold by the New England Conservatory, which plans to use the proceeds of the sale to endow a student scholarship program. The instrument was previously owned by an alumnus of the school, Si-Hon Ma, who died in 2009. His estate donated the instrument to the New England Conservatory in 2015 with a provision that it could one day be sold to finance student scholarships.
“Now we really have the chance to have it benefit so many more students — generations of students to come,” said Andrea Kalyn, the president of the conservatory.
Among violins sold publicly at auction, the current record is held by the so-called “Lady Blunt” Stradivarius, once owned by the granddaughter of Lord Byron, which sold in 2011 for $15.9 million.
The instrument sold on Friday was one of several violins owned by Joachim, who premiered the Brahms violin concerto in 1879.
Simin Ganatra, the chair of the strings department at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University in Bloomington, said the connection to Joachim, who was also a composer, was a major selling point.
“For a musician to play the instrument he once played is a magical experience and something you really cannot put a price on,” she said.
The violin that sold Friday is known as the “Joachim-Ma” Stradivarius. Rare violins once owned by famed virtuosos like Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz and Yehudi Menuhin have sold privately in recent years for up to $20 million, according to dealers. The instruments they played typically bear their names.
The auction of the “Joachim-Ma” violin drew substantial news media attention in recent weeks. Sotheby’s called the instrument a “masterpiece of sound” and initially estimated the sale at $12 to $18 million. But the bidding began at $8 million, and it sold for $10 million. With buyer’s fees, the price came to $11.25 million.
Before the auction on Friday, the violinist Geneva Lewis, a graduate of the New England Conservatory, performed the Largo from Bach’s Sonata No. 3 on the “Joachim-Ma” violin.
While there is a booming market for Stradivarius instruments, the skyrocketing prices have put them out of reach for most violinists. Collectors and institutions sometimes buy them and lend them out to performers.
The New England Conservatory allowed four students to use the “Joachim-Ma” Stradivarius over the past decade for a period of one to two years, according to Kalyn. She said that having a rare instrument of that caliber at the conservatory was a privilege, but that the school felt a sale could help even more students.
“It’s really about what’s the most powerful use of the instrument,” she said.
