Appreciation of Famous Qin: Hellier Stradivarius

 

The Hellier Stradivarius was manufactured by Antonio Stradivari of Clermona, Italy around 1679, and was named after the Hellier family who purchased the instrument directly from the Silesia family.

 

This qin has a rather complex background. It seems that the Hellier family owned this qin at the beginning of the 18th century. Sir Samuel Hellier served as the Chief Executive of Staffordshire from 1745 to 1749, bringing her back to England and holding her for approximately 180 years until 1880.

 

In 1880, Colonel Shaw Hellier, who was then the principal of the Royal Military Music School, sold her to George Crompton in Manchester, who in 1885 resold her to Charles Oldham, a doctor with great talent for violin, through the Hill firm (W. E. Hill&Sons, 1887-1992, a famous company in London, mainly engaged in violin, bow and other stringed instruments, and used to play stringers such as Alard, Messiah and Lipinski) in Brighton. In 1890, Shaw Hillier bought her back again. Shaw Hillier passed away in 1910, and his nephew sold the piano back to the Hill firm, which was later resold to Oscar Bondy in Vienna. Bondy held the piano until 1925 and then sold it back to the Hill firm for £ 5000. H. E. Morris, who was resold to Newmarket this time, was once the editor of "Shanghai Daily News" (also known as "Zilin West Newspaper", an English newspaper established in Shanghai in 1850, which was discontinued on March 31, 1951. Translator's note). After Morris' death in 1944, this violin was resold again through the Hill firm to a renowned New York violin broker, Rembert Wurlitzer.

 

In 1956, Wurlitzer sold the piano to Henry Hottinger in New York, who then sold it to Wurlitzer's daughter in 1965. She sold her violin to Thomas M. Roberts in Memphis in 1979 through another broker, Alfredo Halegua from Washington violin auction house. In 1998, Roberts sold the piano to Dr. Herbert R. Axelrod, a ichthyologist and publisher, who was soon imprisoned for tax fraud.