A report Tuesday (6/21) on the BBC News website states, “A well-preserved Stradivarius violin has been sold in an online auction for £9.8m ($15.9m) to raise money for disaster relief in Japan. The violin was made in 1721 and is known as the Lady Blunt after Lord Byron’s granddaughter Lady Anne Blunt, who owned it for 30 years. It was sold by a music foundation in Japan for victims of the earthquake and tsunami in March. The price is more than four times the previous record for a Stradivarius. Proceeds will go to the Nippon Foundation’s Northeastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund. The violin was offered for sale by the Nippon Music Foundation, owner of some of the world’s finest Stradivari and Guarneri instruments. … The violin is one about 600 instruments made by Italian Antonio Stradivari still in existence. … The identity of its new owner has not been revealed. The Lady Blunt fetched a then-record £84,000 when it was last auctioned at Sotheby’s in 1971.”
Posted June 22, 2011
