The King James II Violin, London, circa 1685.
I was thrilled to be consulted for the re-hanging of the British Galleries of the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2022, which meant selecting suitable musical instruments for the exhibition and providing the necessary conservation work to stabilise them for display. I suspect that Ralph Agutter’s violin was made during a period of competition between the makers working on the Strand, near the royal court for the post of Instrument Maker in Ordinary to the King – a post created to stem the corruption of musicians in the King’s employment. Ultimately the post was given to John Shaw, and Agutter carried on his business, working between London, Edinburgh and his ancestral home in Newcastle. The violin has always been a great favourite of mine, so the opportunity to handle it as a conservator was one of the highlights of my year.
Connoissership at Oxford University.
For the academic world there are deep problems that arise from historic artefacts that are untethered from a record of provenance, and the violin is
