The Chimei Museum in Taiwan contains possibly the largest collection of bowed stringed instruments in the world. Instrument and bow makers from across the globe have travelled to the Museum to examine its treasures: more than 1000 violin makers are represented, along with over 300 bow makers.
The Calendar includes the 1707 ‘Dushkin’ Stradivari, which represents the starting point of the whole collection: it was the $1m purchase of this violin in 1990, by the billionaire Shi Wen-Long, that kick-started the enterprise. Thirty years later, the collection comprises some 1,370 violins, with 260 of them out on loan at any one time.
- Andrea Amati c.1566 cello ‘ex Carlo IX’
- Girolamo Amati 1595 viola ‘King Henry IV’
- Nicolò Amati 1656 violin
- Antonio Stradivari 1667 violin ‘Dubois’
- Girolamo Amati II c.1685 violin
- Giuseppe Guarneri ‘filius Andreae’ 1706 violin ‘Paganini’
- Antonio Stradivari 1707 violin ‘Dushkin’
- Antonio Stradivari 1709 violin ‘Viotti, Marie Hall’
- Antonio Stradivari 1730 cello ‘Pawle’
- Giuseppe Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ 1733 violin ‘Lafont, Siskovsky’
- Carlo Bergonzi 1735–45 cello
- Giuseppe Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ 1744 violin ‘Ole Bull’
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