A beloved violin Albert Einstein was forced to leave behind when he fled Nazi Germany has sold for a total, with fees, exceeding £1 million.
The instrument hammered for £860,000 at Dominic Winter Auctions in Gloucestershire on October 8.
Einstein enjoyed music and played the violin for most of his life. This 1894-made Zunterer instrument is believed to be the first he bought for himself. He named all his instruments Lina, a probable pun on the German word violine. He has scratched that name into the body of this one.
In 1931 to 1933 Einstein travelled extensively, and by 1933 was sure it was no longer safe to return to Germany. Hitler’s Nazi government was securing power and ramping up the discrimination against Jews that would culminate in the atrocities of the Holocaust. Einstein had himself been personally threatened and stayed under armed protection in the UK for a period.
The great scientist has carved the name “Lina” into this significant and much-loved instrument. Image courtesy of Dominic Winter Auctions.
He gave some of his personal possessions, including this violin, to his fellow physicist and friend Max von Laue. Von Laue passed the items to Margarete Hommrich – an admirer of Einstein – whose descendants consigned them for sale.
The violin took around 10 minutes to sell with phone bidders battling to win it, and is now the most valuable Einstein violin ever sold. It has also achieved the highest price for an instrument not linked to a concert player or made by Stradivarius, surpassing the £900,000 paid for the violin played as the Titanic sank.
In 2018, the violin that Einstein was given in the USA in 1933 to replace this one realised $516,500 (£370,000) at a New York auction.
The highest price ever paid for a violin is $23 million, realised by the Baron Knoop Stradivarius made in 1715. It auctioned in March 2025.
