# "Antonius" Violin > Antonio Stradivari - 1711 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/antonio-stradivari/antonius-violin-stradivari-met/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-07 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Antonio Stradivari - **Date:** 1711 - **Medium:** Maple (back, ribs, neck, scroll), spruce (table), ebony (fingerboard, pegs, tailpiece), under oil varnish - **Dimensions:** Height 58.4 cm (23 in); width 20.3 cm (8 in) overall, as given by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Length of back 35.5 cm, as measured in the Cozio Archive. - **Object type:** Musical instrument - **Period:** Italian, early eighteenth century (Cremonese school, Stradivari's "Golden Period," c. 1700-1720) - **Current location:** The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, on view in Gallery 684 (Department of Musical Instruments) - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A grand-pattern violin built by Antonio Stradivari in Cremona in 1711, squarely inside the run of years now called his Golden Period. Its maker was never in doubt; its date was. A degraded handwritten numeral on the instrument's own label was read as 1721 in the owner's will, revised to 1717 by the New York expert Rembert Wurlitzer in the 1950s, and finally confirmed as 1711 only in the 2010s, when a Museum paper conservator examined the label under ultraviolet light and matched its digit pattern to two other securely dated Stradivari instruments from the same year.The violin reached the Metropolitan Museum in 1933-34 as a bequest from the Boston sculptor Annie Bolton Matthews Bryant, together with a second, earlier Stradivari violin nicknamed "The Francesca." Both instruments had belonged first to Bryant's mother, Anne Fay Bolton Matthews, who bought the Antonius from the concertmaster-turned-dealer Felix Berber in Geneva in 1909; Berber had owned it since 1904, and before him it belonged to the Berlin and Leipzig violin maker Wilhelm Hermann Hammig. That chain, while real, stops there: nothing in the sources consulted for this record accounts for the instrument's whereabouts across the roughly two centuries between its making in 1711 and Hammig's ownership by 1905.The two Bryant violins were the first Stradivaris to enter an American museum collection. The Antonius remains on public display in New York and has been used in concert by members of the American String Quartet, most documented in a 2012 performance for the American Musical Instrument Society. Its precise condition and restoration history after 1933, and whether it has ever been altered from its original Baroque configuration as its companion the Francesca demonstrably was, are not fully documented in the sources this record could verify. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1711** Antonio Stradivari, Cremona `[documented]` (manufacture) Date established by the maker's own printed-and-handwritten paper label, read under ultraviolet light as '17ii' (1711) after two earlier, incorrect published readings (1721, then 1717). Cross-checked against the identically dated 'Duport' cello and 'Earl of Plymouth, Kreisler' violin. - **1711-by 1905** Unrecorded `[unknown]` (gap) No owner, dealer or location is documented for approximately 180 years between the violin's manufacture and its earliest identified owner, Wilhelm Hermann Hammig. This record does not bridge the gap with supposition. - **-1905** Wilhelm Hermann Hammig (1838-1925), violin and bow maker, Markneukirchen, Berlin and Leipzig `[documented]` (ownership) Recorded as owner 'until 1905' by both the Metropolitan Museum's own provenance note and the Cozio Archive. How or when he acquired the instrument is not recorded. - **1905-1909** Felix Berber (1871-1930), violinist, formerly concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra `[documented]` (ownership) Berber had owned the violin since 1904 per the Museum's account (a one-year discrepancy against the Cozio Archive's 'from 1905'). He brought it, with a Guarneri del Gesu he had also acquired, on an American tour in 1909-10, likely hoping to sell it to a wealthy American buyer. - **1909** Sale finalised: Felix Berber to Anne Fay Bolton Matthews `[documented]` (sale) On 24 December, Berber signed an affidavit at the American Consulate in Geneva affirming the violin as the work of Antonio Stradivari and finalising its sale to Matthews - an unusually well-documented private sale for the period. - **1909-1915** Anne Fay Bolton Matthews `[documented]` (ownership) Played the violin, and its companion the 'Francesca,' until her death in 1915. Probably gave both instruments their nicknames, honouring Stradivari and his first wife Francesca Ferraboschi. - **1915-1933** Annie Bolton Matthews Bryant (1871-1933), sculptor, Boston `[disputed]` (inheritance) Inherited both violins from her mother. The Museum's own account implies inheritance at the mother's 1915 death; the Cozio Archive's ownership chain instead gives Bryant's own holding as running 'in 1925 and until 1933.' The exact transition date is not established by the sources consulted. - **1933-present** The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York `[documented]` (bequest) Bequeathed by Bryant, who died in 1933 at her summer home in Waltham, Massachusetts; received by the Museum in the spring of 1934 together with the 'Francesca' violin. Accession number 34.86.1a. The two instruments were the first Stradivari violins owned by an American museum. ## Literature - The following items are catalogued in the Metropolitan Museum's own bibliography for this object (source 2, References tab) but were not independently examined for this record and should be read as a citation list only, flagged here for a researcher who wants to go further: Jayson Kerr Dobney, 'Pride of New York,' The Strad, vol. 126 (2015), pp. 51-56; Jayson Kerr Dobney, 'Guitar Heroes: Legendary Craftsmen from Italy to New York,' The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (Winter 2011), p. 42, cat. 72; Stewart S. Pollens, Stradivari (Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 305; Rudy Pensa, Archtop Guitars: The Journey from Cremona to New York (Graphis, 2010), pp. 26-27; Stewart S. Pollens, 'Le Messie,' Journal of the Violin Society of America, vol. 16, no. 1 (1999), p. 92 and p. 100 n. 51; Emanuel Winternitz, Musical Instruments of the Western World (McGraw-Hill, 1967), pp. 184-186, fig. 70; Emanuel Winternitz, Metropolitan Museum Bulletin (May 1954), p. 265; Laurence Libin, 'The "Restored" Stradivari and Amati Violins of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,' Journal of the Violin Society of America, vol. 4, no. 1 (Winter 1977-78), pp. 34-47. ## Open questions - Where was the violin between its completion in 1711 and the earliest identified owner, Wilhelm Hermann Hammig, documented only as owning it 'until 1905'? No source consulted accounts for the intervening roughly 180 years. - Exactly when did ownership pass from Anne Fay Bolton Matthews to her daughter, Annie Bolton Matthews Bryant? The Museum's own account states the mother played the instrument until her death in 1915; the Cozio Archive's ownership chain instead gives the daughter's holding as running 'in 1925 and until 1933.' The two primary sources do not agree, and this record does not resolve the gap. - Who was 'F. A. Mayer, Violin expert,' whose signature appears written directly onto the instrument's own Stradivari label, and when and why was it added there rather than issued as a separate certificate? - Has the Antonius ever been altered from an original Baroque configuration - a lengthened neck, a replaced bass bar or soundpost, a conversion to wire strings - as is separately documented for its companion the Francesca and for the great majority of playing-condition 18th-century violins? No source examined for this record confirms or rules this out for the Antonius specifically. - What does Laurence Libin's 1977-78 Journal of the Violin Society of America article, cited in the Museum's own bibliography for this object, actually say about the Antonius? Secondary reporting on the Museum's 1970s restoration programme documents that project in detail for a different instrument, the 'Gould' violin, but this record could not independently confirm what, if anything, the article says about the Antonius. - Has the violin ever received a formal written authentication certificate - from W. E. Hill and Sons, the Wurlitzer firm, J&A Beare, or a comparable authority - beyond Rembert Wurlitzer's 1950s dating opinion and the Museum's own 2010s ultraviolet examination? No such certificate was located in the sources consulted. - Why did Annie Bolton Matthews Bryant leave both violins to the Metropolitan Museum of Art specifically, rather than to a conservatory, a performing musician, or a European institution? No source consulted records her reasoning. ## Sources - [1] Jayson Kerr Dobney, "Dating Stradivari's 'Antonius' Violin," The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Perspectives, March 7, 2017. - [2] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Collection catalogue entry, Antonio Stradivari, '"Antonius" Violin,' object 503008 (Overview, Signatures/Inscriptions/Markings, Provenance, Exhibition History and References tabs). - [3] Tarisio, Cozio Archive, "Antonio Stradivari, Violin, Cremona, 1711, the 'Antonius'," Property ID 40522. - [4] Wikipedia, "Nanna Matthews Bryant" (Annie Bolton Matthews Bryant). - [5] Wikipedia, "Wallace Bryant (archer)." - [6] The Strad, "Stradivari to Degas: The Strad visits the Metropolitan Museum's string instrument collection." - [7] Benning Violins, "The Stradivarius Instruments of The Met Museum." - [8] Jayson Kerr Dobney, "Tracing the History of Antonio Stradivari's 'Gould' Violin," The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Perspectives, April 25, 2016. Cited only for the unrelated 'Gould' violin, used here as comparanda. - [9] Wikipedia, "Duport Stradivarius." Cited only as comparanda for the 1711 'Duport' cello. - [10] Tarisio, Cozio Archive, "Antonio Stradivari, Violin, Cremona, 1711, the 'Earl of Plymouth, Kreisler'," Property ID 44058. Cited only as comparanda. - [11] Wikipedia, "Rembert Wurlitzer Co." - [12] Corilon, "Rembert Wurlitzer and the travels of antique violins." - [13] Tarisio, Cozio Archive, maker biography, "Wilhelm Hermann Hammig," Maker ID 1637. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.