An important violin by the Italian maker Domenico Montagnana will go up for auction in London today. The violin, an early but accomplished example of work by the Venetian luthier whose output spanned the years 1720-50, was for a long time the concert instrument of Josef Roisman, first violin of the Budapest String Quartet, and represents the first foray into the open market of a violin of this quality by this maker for over 20 years.

Roisman bought the violin from Emil Herrmann in 1942, using it on the majority of the Budapests’ famous recordings of Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn and Schubert chamber music. The Budapests played their final concert in the Library of Congress in 1962; two years after Roisman suffered a heart attack (although they began to play again in 1963). By this time the quartet had changed from being entirely Hungarian to entirely Russian, a fact which prompted Jascha Heifitz to say: “One Russian is an anarchist. Two Russians are a chess game. Three Russians are a revolution. Four Russians are the Budapest String Quartet.” That same year Roisman sold his beloved Montagnana to his friend Dr Bertrand Jacobs, a New York doctor and talented amateur player who shared Roisman’s love of chamber music, and in whose possession it has remained ever since.    

The violin on sale at Brompton’s – a specialist musical instruments auction house set up five years ago by former experts from Bonhams and Christie’s – is a perfectly-preserved representation of the work of one of the few great Venetian makers (Montagnana’s master contemporaries include Sanctus Seraphin and Peter Guarneri). 

Montagnana is traditionally more famous for his cellos, with examples of his work being played by Yo-Yo Ma and Heinrich Schiff and the last example of a Montagnana violin of this quality to come onto the auction market was in the late 1980s, achieving a hammer price of £205,000 at Sotheby’s when it was bought by the then-leader of the Boston Pops Orchestra. This instrument has a powerful, sinewy shape not usually associated with its more famous, lean-shaped Stradivari contemporaries, and is well covered in its original varnish. It also displays its original label – a rarity in instruments of this age – which states his address “sub titulo Cremona”. 

With Montagnana violins changing hands privately at close to £1,000,000, the auction estimate of £250,000-£400,000 on Brompton’s example is designed to pique the interest of players as well as more cash-rich dealers. 

Caroline Gill