Biggest ever Stradivarius exhibition hits Oxford

15 May 2013, 12:52 | Updated: 30 September 2014, 14:28

Oxford's Ashmolean Museum will host the world's largest exhibition of antique Stradivarius violins in June.

Stradivarius violins are widely believed to be the most valuable and precious examples of the instrument in history, and from June to August The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford will host an exhibition of 20 of them.

The exhibition's curator, Dr Jon Whitely, commented: "To bring together so many rare and important violins - by the greatest maker of all time - is an extraordinary event."

Violins in the exhibition will date "from the early Silvestre violin of 1666, to the Fountaine violino piccolo, the Boissier-Sarasate of 1713, to his later violins of the 1730s."

There will also be a mock-up of Antonio Stradivarius' personal workshop as well as a detailed learning experience of how the violins would have been made at the time.

Antonio Stradivarius was recognised in his time as the instrument make of his generation, and his products are still used by violinists including David Garrett, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Nicola Benedetti.