Talk:Hellier Stradivarius

provenance
Cozio provides an incomplete chain: http://www.cozio.com/Instrument.aspx?id=237 It stretches from Edmund Hellier to Axelrod. BrainyBabe (talk) 14:38, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

an 1888 description
An ilustrated plate and a description of the Hellier Strad are to be found in an 1888 book, published shortly after the instrument was exhibited in South Kensington (perhaps at the Victoria and Albert Museum or the Royal Albert Hall?). There are dubious assertions in the text (Sir Samuel Hellier, the musicologist, would have been a baby in 1734), but the reference to a disappeared letter is intriguing. The electronic scan has obscured the price Stradivarius took for it: 40 units, but what are those units?

VIOLIN, THE HELLIER STRADIVARIUS, AND TWO OLD BOWS NOTED FOR THE FLUTING.

THIS is the beautiful " Hellier" Stradivarius Violin made in 1679 and bought by Sir Samuel Hellier of Womborne, Staffordshire, about the year 1734, from the maker himself. It remained in the Hellier family until 1875, when it was acquired by Mr. George Crompton, who subsequently disposed of it to Messrs. W. E. Hill and Sons of New Bond Street, formerly of Wardour Street, London, the experts in the violin section of the South Kensington Music Loan Collection of 1885. It now belongs to Mr. Charles Oldham, who possesses another inlaid violin dated 1687, which was originally made for the King of Spain, and completes his quartet of Stradivarius instruments. This Violin is considered to be one of the perfect earlier works of Stradi- varius, and is of full proportions. It has greater breadth than the so-called "grand" pattern of that famous maker, and is one of his inlaid violins, of which there are not more than twelve extant. A letter of Stradivarius, recording the price (^^40) Sir Samuel Hellier paid for it, was forthcoming until a few years ago, when it was unfor- tunately lost. We are not informed why Stradivarius should have kept this instrument in his own possession for fifty-five years — it seems likely that it had had another owner before Sir Samuel Hellier, and that Stradivarius had taken it back. The details of the ornament upon this Violin have been corrected from an exact tracing taken by Mrs, Huggins of Upper Tulse Hill, London, an earnest amateur of Stradivari's violins. The Hellier Stradivarius was certainly one of the most remarkable examples that appeared in the unrivalled collec- tion of famous violins exhibited at South Kensington in 1885.

This is taken from the e-text of a book held in the library of the University of Cornell. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022263861

Musical instruments : historic, rare and unique (1921) Author: Hipkins, Alfred J. (Alfred James), 1826-1903 Subject: Musical instruments Publisher: London : A. and C. Black, Ltd. First published in 1888.

BrainyBabe (talk) 15:40, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

"HELD" by the Smithonian
Does this mean that it is owned by the Smithsonian, or that it is on loan to it, or what?

208.87.248.162 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:06, 12 February 2011 (UTC).