Star violin takes big price dive

By BERNARD ORSMAN

A violin the Auckland Museum acquired as a Venetian masterpiece worth $200,000 has turned out to be an inferior instrument valued at $20,000.

The violin, labelled as being made by Dominico Montagnana in 1723, was the star when the museum snapped up the world-renowned Castle collection of 475 musical instruments in 1998.

Wellington siblings and music buffs Ron and Zillah Castle spent 60 years amassing the collection - most of which they played.

But the hastily arranged purchase of the collection - to safeguard it from being lost overseas and auctioned at Sotheby's - was done without the museum doing proper due diligence on the instruments.

Suspicions about the authenticity of the violin arose soon after. It was sent to an expert in New York, who said it was a 19th century Dutch or Flemish violin worth $20,000.

The Weekend Herald understands from museum sources that the value placed on the violin being made by one of the greatest members of the violin fraternity in Venice has been at the centre of a long dispute between the museum and Maureen Castle, a niece, who inherited the collection and sold it to the museum.

The museum did not want to pay for a collection it had overvalued. Maureen Castle wanted to adhere to the original purchase price - believed to be about $500,000.

This week, the museum trust board announced it had finally reached a commercial arrangement with Maureen Castle. The price of acquiring the collection, including restoration costs, was $385,703. The price paid to Maureen Castle is confidential, as is the adjusted price of the violin.

The collection was paid for out of money from the Charles Disney Trust, established by Auckland philanthropist Charles Disney in the mid-1960s for the Auckland Museum and the national museum, Te Papa, to spend on the applied arts.

Auckland Museum director Dr Rodney Wilson yesterday refused to comment on "speculation" about a long-running dispute with Maureen Castle. Nor did he accept that any errors had been made by the museum.

He said the collection was bought "as we saw it" because the museum had only a short time to act to keep it in New Zealand.

"We simply took the instruments at face value. The instrument was represented but no guarantees given as by that maker [Montagnana].

"The collection was purchased at what was a fair and reasonable price. We know that from the basis of the valuations," Dr Wilson said. "It is just a shame the instrument is not what we thought it was."

The board has also resolved to keep the entire Castle collection after looking this year at selling some items under the strict guidelines of a "deaccessioning and disposal policy" adopted in 1999.

Maureen Castle has washed her hands of the collection, saying it now belonged to the Auckland Museum and it could do what it liked with it.

The history curator at Te Papa, Michael Fitzgerald, said the national museum considered buying the Castle collection.

But for a number of reasons, including cost, it did not gel with the collection policy.