The fullscore

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The record for the most expensive violin ever sold has been shattered, with the 1715 ‘Baron Knoop’ Stradivari changing hands for $23m (£17.8m) in March. Though the name of the purchaser has not been revealed, the instrument was sold by the American collector David L Fulton, who himself had bought it in February 1992 for $2.75 million.

Made during what is often called luthier Antonio Stradivari’s ‘Golden Period’ and featuring a striking two-piece maple back, adorned with a broad, elegantly marked figure, the ‘Baron Knoop’ has been described by Fulton as ‘easy to play and I’ve never heard a better-sounding violin’. ‘Perhaps some are as good,’ he told The Strad in 2022; ‘perhaps some have remarkable personalities, but none is better. It is a very happy-sounding fiddle.’

When Fulton first acquired it, however, the instrument was covered in French polish and varnish, leaving it a deep orange-red colour. It took three months to remove those layers, revealing the original varnish.

'I've never heard a bettersounding violin. It is a very happy-sounding fiddle'

The purchase sees Stradivari return to the top spot after 12 years of playing second fiddle to Guarneri. In 2013, the 1741 ‘Vieuxtemps’ Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ took the record for the world’s most expensive violin when it was sold for a sum said to exceed $16m (£10.5m) to, again, an undisclosed private buyer. The ‘Vieuxtemps’ remains on lifetime loan to the violinist Anne Akiko Meyers. Before the recent sale of the ‘Baron Knoop’, the most expensive Stradivari ever bought was the 1721 ‘Lady Blunt’, which sold for $15.9m (£10.4m) in New York City in 2011.