An Antiques Roadshow guest was left stunned by valuation of his childhood viola but he remained adamant about not selling the instrument.
During an episode of the popular BBC series, expert Claire Givens met with a guest who brought in an Ansaldo Poggi viola that had been with him since his school and college days. The guest shared: “I was taking lessons when I was a student in high school”.
He continued: “My parents talked to my music teacher, who had been in Italy, and he mentioned a place in Bologna, possibly knew of Poggi, the manufacturer, the maker of it.”
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Adding to the story, he said: “And fortunately, my grandfather was on a trip to Italy and took a detour to Bologna to meet up with the maker.” Upon learning that his grandfather had paid $600 for the viola, Claire expressed her surprise, stating it was “almost unheard of” to get an instrument directly from its creator.
(Image: (Image: PBS))
To this, he responded: “Really, really – I don’t know. I know he’s prolific. I know he has certain renown. When I mention Poggi to other violinists, they smile. That’s about it.” Claire then explained that Poggi was “one of the most important of the 20th Century Italian makers”, who was a “Stradivari enthusiast” and studied under Giuseppe Fiorini, another renowned maker.
She elaborated: “It was Fiorini who bought the “tools and remnants of the Stradivari workshop and gave them to the city of Stradivari, which was Cremona, Italy. Now, Poggi is known to be a very, very precise maker. He was a fanatic about the precision of his craftsmanship and he was a fanatic about only choosing beautiful, beautiful wood. But because there aren’t many marks on his instruments, he’s copied a lot.
(Image: (Image: PBS))
“So my job is to make sure that the instrument is what it’s supposed to be. You can see that the spruce on the top of the viola is very straight, regular grain, right? The back is a beautiful, beautiful flamed maple and the flames go all the way out to the edge. And it’s a magnificent piece of wood. He used that same wood in the peg box and the scroll of the viola. So it’s a handsome, very unified look.”
“Jeez, that’s unbelievable”, the guest exclaimed. Claire continued: “So we have a friend in Minneapolis, he was associate principal violinist in the Minnesota Orchestra and he was Italian and he commissioned in the late 1960s a viola from Ansaldo Poggi. But he didn’t like the way it sounded. “”So he went back to Italy and he showed it to Poggi and he said: ‘Can’t we do something?’
”I’m not happy with the way this sounds and Poggi said: ‘I don’t like it, either. ‘ And he threw it in the fire. I’ll make you another’, he said. “He was a hardworking maker. As I say, I always carried it around as a kid. I enjoyed playing it immensely. It has a marvellous sound but I never took it that seriously, it was my instrument and that was it.”
(Image: BBC)
In the episode, Claire explained: “He’s known to have made at least 388 instruments over a career of 60 years but only 41 violas. So this is a viola that’s kind of come out into the light, which is extremely exciting for me.” Continuing her explanation, she revealed: “I talked to some of my colleagues about the marketplace.” They told her ‘You know what?’ In the United States it’s a little uncertain as to what the marketplace would be but probably somewhere around $200,000 retail price. “
The guest chuckled in disbelief at the valuation, responding: “I was thinking you know, several tens of thousands, maybe. $200,000, possibly?” But there was further shock in store: “Well, here’s the good news. That was the bad news.”
Taking his breath away even more, Claire said: “The good news is that in the Asian market and in the European market, the value for an Ansaldo Poggi viola in this kind of condition would be more like $300,000.”
Despite being given a staggering estimate, the guest confessed: “OK. Well, I don’t intend to sell it, you know.” Wrapping up, Claire advised: “For insurance purposes, I would put this at $330,000.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
