GIOVANNI BATTISTA GUADAGNINI

Edgar Wollgandt
Emil Herrmann
Iso Briselli
Alfred O. Corbin
John Corigliano Sr.
Albert A. Mell

The first recorded owner was Edgar Wollgandt whose name this violin bears. A pupil of Hugo Heermann, Wollgandt was the first violinist of the Gewandhaus String Quartet and the concert master of the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig. The Berlin dealer Emil Herrmann purchased the violin and sold it to Iso Briselli in 1925. Briselli was a student of Carl Flesch and class mate of Samuel Barber at the Curtis Institute for who Barber would later write his celebrated Adagio for Strings. The violin would later revert back to Emil Herrmann who sold it to banker and collector Alfred O. Corbin. As a collector Corbin was know to have owned two Stradivari, including the 1717 Piatti, two works by Matteo Goffriller, a 1743 Giuseppe Guarneri 'del Gesu' and no less then three works by G.B. Guadagnini. After Corbin's death the instrument was sold to New York violinist John Corigliano Sr. in 1935. Long time concertmaster for the New York Philharmonic Corigliano owned the violin for eight-teen years when in 1953 it was purchased by Albert A. Mell for the sum of $7,500. Albert Mell would retain the violin until his death in 2007.