£2,000 for a Fiddle.

Te Aroha News, Volume VIII, Issue 488, 12 July 1890, Page 3

£2,000 for a Fiddle.

The musical world will bo interested to learn that the famous Alavd Strad, known as the Messie, has been added to the many magnificent specimens of the great master’s work already owned in the United Kingdom. It has just been purchased for £2,000 to enrich the collection of a distinguished and wealthy amateur north of -the Tweed. This violin, which is so perfect in condition and workmanship—it is dated 1716 and therefore.. belongs to the grand period of Stradivaiius’ work—as to deserve the epithet of ‘unique,’ must be familiar to English connoisseurs, who, in 1872, had abundant opportunity of studying it at the Exhibition of Musical Instruments at South Kensington, to which it was sent by its then owner. M. VAillau me, the well-known maker of Paris. The instrument, which is described in the catalogue of the exhibition as being the only one which has come down to us in a 'condition of perfect preservation, was bought in 1760 by a distinguished Italian amateur, Count Cozio di Salabue, after whose death it was purchased in 1824 by the famous collector, Luigi Tarisio. Tarisio bid it away, re fufing to let any one see it till his death in 1854. A year later it was, together with many more instruments collected bv Tari-io, purchased from his heirs by the late M. Yuillaume. Its condition of preservation ivas then found to be suoh as to warrant the belief that it had scarcely been played upon during the whole 150 years of its existence. M. Vuillaume, who could nob bring himself to part with tho treasure, loft it on his death to his son-in-law, M. Alard, the well-known French violinist.