violin

The Musical Instrument Fund purchased this violin in 2023 to replace a violin by the same maker that had to be returned to its owner that year. It was a fortunate coincidence that this violin happened to be on the market at just the right time, as it is not often that a Lefèbvre violin comes up for sale. With this purchase, the Musical Instrument Fund ensured that the luthier Lefèbvre would continue to be represented in the collection with a violin, alongside the two violas and a cello he had crafted. At the same time, the Music Instrument Fund was able to provide the violinist—whose instrument had to be returned to its owner—with a very suitable replacement instrument. We have been able to trace the last ± 50 years of this instrument’s history: in the 1970s, the violin was in the prominent London workshop of J. & A. Beare. In 1976, Charles Beare sold the violin—described as a French violin from ca. 1790—to art dealer G.S. Edelson on Madison Avenue in New York. The documentation of the sale and import is still included with the violin. The violin then made several stops in Italy (B. Carlson – Cremona) and eventually ended up at the Parisian workshop “Serge et Florent Boyer,” after which it returned to America; by this time, the violin had been attributed to the work of François LeJeune. Violin maker Hubert de Launay discovered that it was not a French violin but rather an instrument made by an Amsterdam-based maker with a French background and training: J.B. Lefèbvre. In 2022, De Launay brought the instrument back to the Netherlands. Since 2023, Caitlin Ensor has been playing the Amsterdam violin.