Long-lost ‘Mendelssohn’ Stradivarius violin taken in Nazi Germany has been traced in Japan

14 July 2025, 16:02

A violin that went missing after World War Two has been identified – and it appears to have been hiding in plain sight.

A US academic who runs a project tracing Nazi-era musical losses claims to have identified a 1709 Stradivarius violin that has been missing for nearly 80 years.

The priceless ‘Mendelssohn’ violin, which once belonged to the German musical family, was stolen at the end of World War Two.

Last summer Carla Shapreau, who runs the Lost Music Project, came across a photo of a violin known as the 1707 ‘Stella’ Stradivari, which had been captured for a 2018 Tokyo exhibition.

The photo raised suspicions due to its likeness to the ‘Mendelssohn’. Both the shape and markings on the violins were noticeably indistinguishable and after a year of research they are now believed to be one and the same – a claim backed up by founder of the auction house Tarisio, Jason Price.

Here’s the extraordinary story…

Read more: 1715 Stradivarius sold for $23 million becomes most expensive violin in history

Janine Jansen and Gustavo Dudamel - Mendelssohn Violin Concerto

What’s the history of the ‘Mendelssohn’ violin?

In the 1920s, a violinist named Lilli von Mendelssohn-Bohnke owned the ‘Mendelssohn’ violin. Lilli’s family were German-Jewish bankers and respected musicians; her father was a violinist, and her second cousin twice removed was none other than Felix Mendelssohn.

The family’s bank, Mendelssohn & Co, had become one of Germany’s most powerful private banks. But in the 1930s, the Nazis passed race laws banning Jews from owning property.

Following Lilli’s untimely death in a car crash in 1928, the violin was deposited in a vault at her family’s bank until it was forced into liquidation in 1938.

When the war ended in 1945, the family was told the Stradivarius had been moved to a Deutsche Bank safe and had later gone missing. The Mendelssohn-Bohnke family endeavoured to recover the instrument to no avail.

Read more: Secret note found hidden in Jewish prisoner’s violin at Dachau concentration camp

What’s the history of the ‘Stella’ violin?

The ‘Stella’ instrument is owned by Japanese violin virtuoso Eijin Nimura. He acquired the instrument around 2005 and has posted openly about it across his website and social media, appearing to have no knowledge of the possible link with the ‘Mendelssohn’ violin.

The ‘Stella’ had resurfaced 10 years earlier in Paris and was certified that year in London by Charles Beare, who dated it between 1705 and 1710 but seemingly had no awareness of the ‘Mendelssohn’ connection.

Price says he encountered the ‘Stella’ in 2000 when it was temporarily held by Tarisio. “I have held it in my hands many times,” Price said. At the time, it was valued for between $1.2 and $1.5 million.

Price however writes: “the name ‘Stella’ and the spurious Dutch provenance were not known to Tarisio in 2000”.

In a blog on the auction house’s website, he adds: “It lived in the Tarisio vault for several months in the autumn of 2000. But that was long before I knew – to be clear, this was long before anyone knew – that this was the stolen ‘Mendelssohn’ Stradivari.” In the end, the violin did not sell in 2000.

Around five years later it was sold to Nimura with a statement of provenance that it had been “in the possession of a noble family which has been living in Holland since the times of the French Revolution”.

What will happen now?

The Mendelssohn-Bohnke family, who according to Price are – in accordance with “the laws of most countries” – the rightful owners of the stolen violin, wish to reach a settlement. But Nimura has communicated through his lawyers that he has no obligation to the family.

Auction houses have always had a responsibility to perform due diligence and ensure items change hands with clear past and present ownership titles. But today, expectations have risen, and the stands for research, title clearance and authenticity have shot up.

There is also increasing pressure for looted objects to be returned to original owners and heirs, placing current owners in difficult situations.

In the case of the Stella-Mendelssohn violin, the two instruments’ provenances have now merged, and in official records it is now known simply as the ‘Mendelssohn’.