1760

This superb violin was made in 1755 by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini (1711–1786), whose father is presumed to have been a pupil of Stradivari. From 1900 to 1924 the violin served as Edgar Wollgandt’s (1880–1949) concert instrument. Wollgandt, a pupil of Hugo Heermann (1844–1935), had been the concert-master of the Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra and first violinist of the Gewandhaus Quartet. The violin was named after him.

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In 1924 the instrument dealer Emil Herrmann bought the violin transferring it to New York. There, the soap manufacturer and patron of the arts, Samuel Fels, bought it in 1925, intending it as a gift for the violinist Isaak Briselli (1912–2005) whom he admired. Briselli, born in Odessa and wishing to complete his studies in the USA made the journey there via Germany. For Briselli, Fels commissioned a Violin Concerto (op. 14) from Samuel Barber in 1939. Briselli, in fact, never played it; the last movement did not please him. The violin passed to the New York banker and collector Alfred O. Corbin (1874–1941) in 1932 in whose possession it remained until his death in 1935.

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Thereafter, John Paul Corigliano Sr. (1901–1975) bought the Wollgandt and it was this instrument which he played for 18 of his 23-year tenure as concert master of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. John Paul Corigliano Sr. was the father of the composer John Paul Corigliano Jr. (born 1938) whose composition, a Violin Concerto played by Joshua Bell, was used for the soundtrack of the film “The Red Violin”. This film won the Oscar for Best Film Music in 2000.

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Albert A. Mell, violinist and professor of music at Queens College, New York, acquired the instrument in 1953 keeping it until 2007. Professor Mell was the publisher and editor of the Journal of the Violin Society of America (VSA) from 1976 until 2005. In 2007 the Swiss collector and instrument dealer Samuel Ferriz bought the violin keeping it until 2022. In the same year, the Huggler-Coray family made the purchase of the “Wollgandt” for our foundation possible.