A violin that may be the Nazi-looted instrument has been brought to attention following a performance by violinist Emmanuel Coppey in Colmar, France
In 1944 during the German army’s retreat, the 1719 ‘Lauterbach’ Stradivari violin was looted from the Warsaw Museum in Poland. It had been left there on deposit by Polish industrialist Henryk Grohman, who died in 1939. Its value is estimated at €10 million.
Now, more than 80 years later, notice has been taken of an instrument which may be the looted violin.
On 31 March, a concert took place at the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, France, featuring French violinist Emmanuel Coppey and sommelier Serge Dubs. Alongside the event’s wine tastings, Coppey performed Sibelius’s Violin Concerto on four different instruments: a 1624 Nicolò Amati violin, a 1735 Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ violin, a 2023 Jean-Jacques Graff violin, and a 1719 Stradivari violin.
The French publication Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace’s coverage of the event caught the attention of Pascale Bernheim. As founder of Musique et Spoliations, which traces looted instruments and music material, the corresponding date of the violin prompted her to investigate.
In a report published by Le Parisien, Bernheim asserts that of the nine Stradivari violins made in 1719, the process of elimination determines that this must be the 1719 ‘Lauterbach’ Stradivari.
‘Dozens of false leads, analyses, expert opinions, back-and-forth investigations… in short, a team that never gives up!’ Bernheim published on the Musique et Spoliations website on 22 April. ‘A Stradivarius from 1719, identical in every way to the Lauterbach. A historic first: in 80 years, no looted instrument of this value had been recovered. The story is not over. The violin must be returned to its rightful owners. The work continues…’
Le Parisien previously reported on the search for the ‘Lauterbach’ Stradivari in November 2022, when Musique et Spoliations was investigating another 1719 Stradivari violin.
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