A Russian businessman broke the world auction record for any musical instrument when he bought a violin in London yesterday.

Maxim Viktorov, a 35-year-old lawyer and musician, bought an extremely rare violin by Giuseppe Guarneri, known as Giuseppe del Gesù, the 18th-century master who raised the art of violin-making to its highest pitch.

A private treaty sale of the violin, dating from the 1740s, was negotiated by Sotheby’s, which declined to reveal the price paid. The figure was said to be “well in excess” of the world auction record of $3.54 million, which was achieved by a Stradivarius sold at Christie’s New York in 2006.

Instruments by Guarneri (1698-1745) are even more revered by many players than those by the other great Cremonese maker, Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737), of whom it is said that he must have had an angel on his shoulder as he worked.

Many of the greatest virtuosos since Paganini in the 19th century have preferred Del Gesùs. The instruments are more expensive today partly because far fewer have survived, about 150, against about 600 Strads.

The Sotheby’s Del Gesù was once owned and adored as his “inseparable companion” by Henri Vieuxtemps, the 19th-century composer and violin prodigy who impressed Schumann with his playing. Later it remained in the same private family collection for more than 100 years.

Yesterday at Sotheby’s it was played in public for the first time in 70 years, by the 20-year old British violinist Chlöe Hanslip, before being passed to its new owner.

Mr Viktorov has a world-class collection of violins at his home in Moscow and regularly lends them to performers. They include a Bergonzi made in Cremona in the 1720s that he bought at Sotheby’s in 2005 for $1.05 million.

He said that his new acquisition would be played regularly in public. “The violin is the perfection of human activity. Guarneri was a genius, a great master, so it is doubly perfect. The violin itself wants to be heard.”

Mr Viktorov added: “Playing the violin is a very intimate part of my life. A Strad is more of a Mozart, who wrote music aiming to go to the heavens and up to the stars. A Del Gesù has a bottomless depth. It is a more tragic instrument.”

The Del Gesù’s first concert appearance will be on March 22, when the great virtuoso Pinchas Zukerman will perform Bach, Bruch and Mozart in the Grand Hall of Moscow State Conservatory.

Hitting the high notes

— A violin made by Antonio Stradivari, right, in 1708, nicknamed “the Hammer” after the Swedish collector Christian Hammer, was sold at Christie’s New York, for $3.54 million in 2006

— Last year another Stradivarius violin, “the Solomon”, made in 1729, sold for $2.73 million at Christie’s New York. It had once been owned by the English collector Robert Bower, who is said to have once owned 24 Stradivari instruments

— In 2005 “the Lady Tennant”, a violin made in 1699, the beginning of Stradivari’s “golden age”, sold for $2.03 million at Christie's New York

— The “Kreutzer” Stradivarius, made in 1727, went for £947,500 at Christie's London in 1998

— The “Mendelssohn” Stradivarius from 1720 sold for £902,000 at Christie’s London in 1990

— In 2006 the “Fenyves” violin, made by Stradivari circa 1720 and named after the Hungarian-born musician Lorand Fenyves, sold for $1.44 million in Boston

— The “Taft” Stradivarius from 1700 made £861,000 at Christie’s New York in 2000

— A Stradivarius from 1712, “Le Brun”, fetched £795,000, at Sotheby’s in 2001

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