Ledger lines

An unusual lot at a November 2022 auction caused a stir among bow researchers and enthusiasts – particularly when it was donated to a public institution to save it from private hands

The Wurlitzer bow ledger is a treasure trove of information

T2 AUCTIONS, SUXIAO YANG

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The US Library of Congress’s (LoC) acquisition late last year of the bow inventory ledger of the Rudolph Wurlitzer firm represents a relatively rare instance of a historical dealer document ending up in a public institution. The Wurlitzer ledger contains descriptions of more than 1,000 bows sold by the US firm between 1937 and 1950. Just days before the ledger was due to be auctioned by Tarisio in October 2022, Carla Shapreau, an academic, violin maker and lawyer whose research includes investigations of Nazi-era looted musical instruments, contacted the instrument collector David L. Fulton to ask him if he could help save the ledger from going into private hands. Fulton made a successful bid and swiftly donated the document to the LoC. ‘Rescuing the ledger was a way of keeping the information it contains out in the open, which is ultimately where it should be,’ says Fulton. ‘I made the donation with the explicit understanding that the document would be in the public domain.’ Public access to provenance and pricing information for stringed instruments and bows received a boost 20 years ago when Philip Margolis founded the Cozio Archive. Acquired by Tarisio in 2012, this archive now encompasses over 36,000 instruments and bows by more than 3,500 makers and includes over 57,000 historical auction prices. But important records from violin firms often remain in private hands, held close by dealers and not available to the wider public. Notable exceptions include the Lupot, Gand & Bernardel, and Caressa & Francais archives that Jacques Francais donated to the Musée de la Musique in Paris in 1981, and the records he bequeathed to the Smithsonian Institution on his death in 2004.

Such documents are important for a range of reasons, says Shapreau. ‘These records have the potential for informing topics such as authenticity, provenance, the history of the trade and of collecting, the nature of transactions and the geographical network of the parties involved, and the relationships between dealers, collectors, performers, makers and teachers. So a ledger like the Wurlitzer document could arguably inform social, cultural, political and economic histories.’

In her work as a researcher, Shapreau has found that certain critical facts may only be ascertained from dealer records. ‘Records such as the Wurlitzer ledger contain unique information,’ she says. ‘And you don’t know what fact is going to be important until you’re looking for a particular history, or for information on a certain instrument or bow. That’s why public access to such documents, even when they’re privately owned, is so important, because in many cases there is no other source for a particular piece of information.’

‘Dealer records offer a valuable competitive advantage’

In considering access to historical dealer records, the publicinterest argument comes up against issues of proprietary rights, commercial sensitivity and legitimate business interests. ‘With the information they can give about instrument provenance and condition, dealer records offer a valuable competitive advantage,’ says Fulton. ‘Although there are fascinating historical documents among certain dealer archives that ought to be publicly accessible, I understand the desire to keep them private if there are aspects that might cast a negative light on the dealer or their business practice, or if making them public could have financial implications for instrument owners. For example, if you owned a “del Gesù” and the opinion in the document was that the violin was a fake, you wouldn’t be happy.’

On the other hand, there is a public-interest argument for transparency regarding the historical facts of an instrument’s condition or restoration. Shapreau says: ‘There could be important condition information in historical dealer records concerning repairs, restorations, or an instrument’s composite nature, as well as when, where, and who performed the work. These facts may be relevant to authenticity, value or provenance.’

At the LoC the Wurlitzer ledger joins a collection of photographs that Rudolph Wurlitzer donated in 1937 which show all the Stradivari instruments that had passed through the shop. ‘In this respect,’ says Carol Lynn Ward-Bamford, curator of the LoC’s musical instruments collection, ‘the ledger is another part of understanding the story of the Wurlitzer firm, as well as informing scholars and musicians who might be interested in the provenance of a certain bow.’ Although fine instruments may be the stars of a public institution’s collection, the importance of historical documents, certificates and ledgers in enhancing the understanding of those instruments should not understated, says Ward-Bamford.

Major public institutions have the conservation expertise to preserve historical documents, and are able to curate and catalogue them and make them accessible, either in a reading room or online. However, they often have a limited acquisitions budget and rely heavily on donations from collectors. While recognising the financial challenge, Shapreau says: ‘There is also a national cultural heritage component to preserving these documents. In the case of state and public musical instrument collections, I hope they will grow their document archives in order to preserve the full history of making, restoring and dealing in their country.’