J.B. Vuillaume’s ‘Lady Blunt’ papers

This post originally appeared on the ‘fiddlefish.com’ blog. It’s here for archival purposes only.

I found this transcript (translated from the French) on the Lady Blunt Stard written by one of the violin's first owners: master violin maker, J.B. Vuillaume. It is my understanding that he aquired the Lady Blunt in Spain from violin hunter Luigi Tarisio.

“I, the undersigned, declare that I have sold to Lady Anne Isobella Nöel a violin by Antonio Stradivari, made in Cremona in the year 1721, for the sum of £260 sterling. I guarantee the perfect authenticity of this instrument which came into my possession with its original fingerboard and without having been opened, everything about it is intact and I have not touched it except as is required by present day needs. I have had to change the bar and lengthen the neck to modern dimensions, but I have preserved the original neck. This fine instrument is therefore absolutely complete, and in an exceptionally rare state of preservation.”