A rare example of the world's most famous Stradivarius violin sold at auction in New York on Thursday for $15.34 million, just below the record ($15.9 million) for such an instrument, the company said. specialist Tarisio.

The violin, made in 1714 by the master Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737), had belonged for almost 40 years to the Russian-American virtuoso Toscha Seidel (1899-1962), who had played it in the soundtrack of the "Magician of 'Oz' (1939), a Hollywood classic.

“Seidel was also Albert Einstein’s teacher. This violin therefore found itself side by side with the great mathematician scientist as they played quartets at Albert's house in Princeton, New Jersey," Jason Price, founder and director, told AFP on Friday. de Tarisio, in the premises of the company specializing in the sale of rare instruments.

Toscha Seidel, who had emigrated to the United States in the 1930s, and Albert Einstein, who had fled the Nazi regime, had taken part in a concert in New York in 1933 in support of German Jewish scientists leaving their country.

Of the thousand instruments made by the luthier of Cremona, there are still around 600 listed today.

“Many are in museums, others in foundations, they will not be sold. Of those that have survived, there are a few that are known as the examples of the golden period, which is roughly between 1710 and 1720. And these are, for the most part, the most desired and the most appreciated”, explains Jason Price.

The violin belonged to the Munetsugu collection in Japan. The Tarisio house gave no indication of the buyer.

The record at an auction dates back to 2011, when a Stradivarius baptized “Lady Blunt”, to have belonged to Lady Anne Blunt, granddaughter of the poet Lord Byron, was sold for 15.89 million dollars in London.

In 2014, another copy, whose minimum price had been set at 45 million dollars, had not found a buyer at Sotheby's.