Ida Haendel's Sleeping Beauty

May 8, 2012 at 05:47 PM · Hi,

This is my first post about instruments on this inspiring forum. So many people with so much combined skill understanding and experience.

This is a q niggling me about the Stradivarius played by Ida Haendel, which according to Cozio is item #135 1726 "Sleeping Beauty" (not to be confused with the 1704c Strad #715 "Sleeping Beauty" or "Dornröschen" currently played by Isabelle Faust).

According to some sources, Ida Haendel's Strad has also been described as from 1699 (eg Jessica Duchen's interview), 1696 (eg José Sanchez-Pendo's biography).

I suppose there may be an obvious explanation along the lines of who really knew what and when, but I wondered, is there a story behind the elucidation of the provenance of Haendel's violin? Was there simply a misunderstanding in some of the stories? Or did she have different Strads at different times?