Duke of Alcantara Stradivarius

Legend has it that the instrument was named after an 18th century Spanish nobleman who was referred to as the 'Duke of Alcantara.'[1] The instrument was also allegedly owned by Napoleon I of France in the early 19th century.[2] The violin was owned by Albert Caressa later in the 19th century. He sold it from his shop in Paris to a collector, Erich Lachmann of Berlin.[3] In 1925, Lachmann sold the instrument to Dr. Steiner-Schweitzer, a collector in Switzerland.[3] In 1929, the Stradivarius was bought by Rudolph Wurlitzer in New York and it was later transferred to one of his properties in Cincinnati.[3][4] In 1945, the violin was sold to Ilya Schkolnik, the newly appointed concertmaster to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.[4][5] In the late 1950s, he moved to Los Angeles and the instrument was sold to oilman Milton Vedder.[4] He died shortly after and his wife, Genevieve Vedder, donated it in 1961 to the University of California, Los Angeles's music department (now the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music). Professor of violin and musicology, Marrocco Thomas, performed on the Stradivarius until 1967.[4]

In mid-1967, David Margetts, a graduate student and second violinist of the Feri Roth String Quartet at UCLA, was in possession of the instrument.[6] It was kept in a double case with a 1950s violin by Ansaldo Poggi and bows by François Tourte and Markus Fischer.[6][7] On the evening of August 2, 1967, the Stradivarius disappeared while Margetts was in Pasadena.[8] Margetts states that he did not know whether he placed the instrument case on top of his car and drove off, or if it was stolen from inside his vehicle while he was shopping for groceries.[7][8] He then sent notices to stores and the police but he was left unsuccessful.[7] Later during the same month, Nadia Tupica, the owner of a local music store and a retired Spanish teacher, claimed to have discovered the Stradivarius in a double case on the side of a highway on-ramp.[6] Tupica recalled that she stopped on the road to pick up what she thought was an abandoned small infant which turned out instead to be a violin case.[8] Tupica died in 1978 and the double case with the Stradivarius was handed over to her nephew Jefferson Demarco.[8] As part of Demarco's divorce settlement case in 1993, the violin was awarded to his former wife, Teresa Salvato, an amateur violinist who lived in Riverside.[7]

In January 1994, Salvato lent the Stradivarius to her teacher Michael Sand who took it to Joseph Grubaugh in Petaluma for maintenance.[6][9] Grubaugh looked for the violin in a catalogue by the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers to find it was a real Stradivarius and was marked as stolen from UCLA.[6] Grubaugh then proceeded to immediately call UCLA. After the instrument's repairs were completed, Grubaugh gave the instrument back to Sand who then returned it to Salvato, but discussions between lawyers hired by UCLA and Salvato immediately began.[6] In May of 1994, campus police officers appeared at Salvato's home and threatened to arrest her, thus Salvato would remain secluded in her home and avoid answering knocks on her door for months.[7] In October, UCLA lawyers achieved an injunction to force Salvato to surrender the instrument to UCLA's Fowler Museum where it would remain unplayed until the Los Angeles County Superior Court could decide who is the owner.[4]

On December 1, 1995, it was determined in court that the Stradivarius along with the Poggi and the missing bows would be returned to UCLA and Salvato would receive a payment of $11,500 USD.[10][11] Around this time, the Duke of Alcantara was estimated to have a value of at least $800,000 USD.[6]

The Duke of Alcantara usually stays locked in a vault at UCLA.[12] Violinists who are winners of UCLA Philharmonia's All Star Concerto Competition and the Atwater Kent String Concerto Competition have the chance to play on the violin.[13] In 2020, UCLA was given a second Stradivarius violin which will arrive in 2025.[14]