One of the rarest and most prestigious violins in the world — the 1709 “Mendelssohn” Stradivarius — has resurfaced in Tokyo after vanishing during the Nazi era. The instrument, crafted by the legendary Antonio Stradivari, once belonged to German-Jewish violinist Lili von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, a relative of famed composer Felix Mendelssohn.
After Lili’s tragic death in a car accident in the late 1920s, the violin was transferred to the family-owned Mendelssohn & Co. bank. However, following the rise of the Nazi regime and the enactment of the Nuremberg Laws, Jewish ownership of property was outlawed. The bank was shut down by the authorities, and many of its assets were seized — including the Stradivarius violin.
After World War II, the Mendelssohn family was told the instrument had been lost during a transfer to Deutsche Bank. Some suspected it had been looted by the Nazis or taken by the Soviets, who later occupied the area.
It wasn’t until 1995 that the violin resurfaced in Paris, brought in by an obscure Russian violinist who claimed he had purchased it from a German dealer in Moscow in 1953. French luthier Bernard Sabatier examined the instrument and showed it to British violin expert Charles Beare, who attributed it to a collaboration between Stradivari and one of his sons. Despite this, the violin failed to sell at a 2000 auction at Tarisio, the renowned string instrument auction house.
