Published on October 10, 2024 at 11:29. / Modified on October 10, 2024 at 11:31.
If this violin disappeared, Renato Moser could provide all the information to rebuild it identically. This is of course a metaphor. The researcher from the Basel Historical Museum spent nearly a year studying the institution’s collection of musical instruments, and particularly this violin made in 1780 by the famous Neapolitan luthier Nicolò Gagliano, according to its label. . Its traces were then lost in history until it reappeared at the luthier and restorer Henry Werro, in Bern, where it was acquired in 1962 by its last owner, musician and violin teacher Anne-Marie v. Stürler, who donated it to the Basel Historical Museum.
Why is it now attracting so much attention? “In the 1950s, Henry Werro’s activities aroused suspicion and the luthier was convicted of fraud and falsification of documents and labels. This justified a first clarification on the origins of the violin,” explains Renato Moser. It also lacked information on its owners during the Nazi regime and after the Second World War, a risky period on which research generally focuses, to identify possible cases of spoliation or fire sales following persecutions.
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