For this year’s calendar, The Strad has partnered with the Dutch Musical Instruments Foundation. Established in 1988, it has accumulated one of the largest collections of instruments in Europe, with a total value estimated at over €36 million. More than 400 are stringed instruments, along with 250 bows.
Some of the treasures include Antonio Stradivari’s c.1716 ‘Paul Godwin’ violin, made in the master luthier’s ‘golden period’; the c.1736 Guarneri ‘del Gesù‘, valued at €3.5 million; and the ‘ex-Navarra’ Guarneri ‘filius Andreae’ cello of 1715, formerly owned by the virtuoso André Navarra.
The twelve instruments this year are:
- 1696 Hendrik Jacobs cello
- 1715 Giuseppe Guarneri ‘filius Andreae’ cello
- c. 1716 Antonio Stradivari violin ‘Paul Godwin’
- 1725 Pietro Guarneri of Venice violin ‘Reine Elisabeth’
- 1734 Gennaro Gagliano cello
- c. 1736 Giuseppe Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ violin
- 1750 Giovanni Battista Guadagnini Baroque cello
- 1750 Santo Serafin violin
- c. 1750 Michele Angelo Bergonzi violin
- c. 1770 Carlo Ferdinando Landolfi double bass
- 1844 Giuseppe Antonio Rocca violin
- 1867 Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume viola
