From Out Of The Dark

The 1732 ‘Armingaud, Fernández Blanco’ Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ is an excellent example of the maker’s late period. Frédéric Chaudière examines the instrument and tells the dramatic story of its rediscovery

- Frederic Chaudiere

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, there is a museum containing one of the world’s finest collections of stringed instruments. For years this collection went virtually unnoticed by the string music world, and the jewel in its crown, a violin by Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ in almost pristine condition, lay untouched and forgotten in a storeroom. Now, however, it lies in state at the heart of the Museo de Arte Hispanoamericano Isaac Fernández Blanco – a superb mansion, built in the manner of a two-floor Spanish hacienda – and is regularly taken out for concert performances. The collection owes its existence, in large part, to the violinist and author Pablo Saraví, who helped to uncover and identify the instruments some years ago.

For Saraví, the story began soon after he was appointed concertmaster at the Buenos Aires opera house, the Teatro Colón. On taking up the post, he discovered several dusty glass cases in the theatre’s foyer. The instruments they contained had been loaned by the museum to the opera house many years beforehand. Having already heard about the Fernández Blanco collection, Saraví started looking more closely and found what looked like a genuine Guadagnini violin, an excellent Storioni viola and several dozen unidentified Italian instruments. The discoveries prompted him to dig deeper, and he soon found mention of a 1732 Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ in the writings of the original collector, the engineer and industrialist Isaac Fernández Blanco. He then consulted the Hills’ 1931 book The Violin Makers of the Guarneri Family 1626 –1762, in which he found a reference to a 1732 ‘del Gesù’ listed as one of the most typical examples of the 1730–5 period. Unfortunately, no photos that would have helped to identify the Guarneri were to be found in the Hill book or in Fernández Blanco’s notes.