Who Stole Erica Morini’s $3.5 Million Stradivarius Violin?
In 1995, as 91-year-old Erica Morini lay in hospital, her beloved violin was discovered missing. The thief’s identity has never been established, and the instrument never found.
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An image search for Erica Morini returns a veritable life album of the violinist posing with her beloved Stradivarius violin. As she ages through the years, her instrument—and the look of contentment and tenderness on her face as she glances down at it—stays the same.
It was a portrait like this that hung in the New York City apartment where Morini lived out her last years.
She may have retired twenty years earlier, but she kept the Stradivarius violin that had been her closest companion for most of her life nearby—locked up in the china closet. Her friends pleaded with her over the years to find a more secure location for the violin worth $3.5 million. But Morini didn’t listen.