Fall 2011 Auction Results
October means many things to many people, but in the strings world it’s all about the autumn auction frenzy. At Christie’s October 14 auction, a 19th-century 16 5/8-inch viola ascribed to Milanese maker Giovanni Vasallo, a pupil of Giovanni Grancino, piqued someone’s interest. It sold for $86,500, a new record for an instrument by that maker. A ca. 1777 Joseph Gagliano violin was another highlight, with a $92,500 hammer price. Two of the auction’s other stars, a violin and a cello made by Milanese maker Giovanni Grancino around 1690, failed to meet their hefty reserve prices. Still, prices continued upward trends and sales records continued to be broken. Bonham’s October 5 London sale featured many fiddles by unknown makers, though many of those were attributed nonetheless to makers with familiar names. A Giovanni Battista Rogeri violin, made in Brescia, ca. 1690, fared the best. It sold for £169,250. The highest-selling unknown featured a plain back and a rough-looking scroll, typical of Milanese maker Carlo Giuseppe Testore, to whom this ca. 1730 fiddle was attributed. It went for £49,250. Sotheby’s October 4 London sale also topped off with a G.B. Rogeri violin. The £337,250 record-breaking hammer price is not surprising, given Rogeri’s pedigree as a builder of extraordinary talents—he’s believed to have studied alongside Antonio Stradivari under Nicolò Amati. A ca. 1700 Giovanni Grancino cello went for £121,250.
October 3 saw even more excitement at Brompton’s and Tarisio. Jean Baptiste Vuillaume continues to be one of the few hot, non-Italian makers on the market. One of his 1829 violins went for £114,000 at Tarisio. The same auction netted £14,400 for a François Peccatte bow. Over at Brompton’s, a staggering ca. 1820 François Xavier Tourte bow, with a gold-and-tortoiseshell mounting, set a new record for the maker, fetching £102,000. But the show stealer was a “virtually flawless” 1774 Nicolo Gagliano cello, with much of its original varnish, which was on the market for the first time in three decades. This well-documented, investment-grade instrument earned a record-breaking £480,000.
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