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The 1714 "da Vinci, ex-Seidel" Stradivari was sold on Thursday for $15.34 million, a price for a Strad violin that is second only to the "Lady Blunt" Strad, sold in 2011 for $15.9 million. Both violins were sold through Tarisio Auctions.
The "Golden Period" Strad was used for almost 40 years by Russian-American violinist Toscha Seidel (1899-1962), who was once a classmate of Jascha Heifetz, Efrem Zimbalist, Mischa Elman and Nathan Milstein in the studio of Leopold Auer in St. Petersburg. In fact, in 1922 George Gershwin wrote a song about the Russian-Jewish virtuoso violinists called "Mischa, Jascha, Toscha, Sascha."
During the 1920s Seidel toured across the United States, Europe and Australia, then in the early 30s became a radio and studio performer, hosting the weekly radio show The Toscha Seidel Program and working as CBS’s musical director. While living in New York he met Albert Einstein and gave him violin lessons. The two performe