About Lady Anne Blunt
A Biography
Lady Anne Blunt
Grand-daughter of Lord Byron, Lady Anne Blunt (1837– 1917) was a colourful member of the British artistocracy, distinguished not only for her stewardship of the pristine Stradivari violin that bears her name, but also for her important work in breeding Arabian horses.
An accomplished violinist, Lady Anne was a pupil of the Czech violinist Leopold Jansa, who encouraged his student’s acquisition of the violin from J.B. Vuillaume in 1864. (Incidentally, Jansa also owned a Stradivarius of the same year, acquired separately.) Lady Anne also had a lifelong passion for horses, which was shared by her husband, the poet Sir Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. In 1882 they bought Sheykh Obeyd, a private estate outside Cairo devoted to horse breeding, and they also established the Crabbet Arabian stud farm in England, which established a lasting legacy for the breed worldwide.
Lady Anne’s marriage was strained by Blunt’s frequent and open infidelity, and produced only one surviving child, Judith Blunt-Lytton. The couple finally separated in 1906 and Lady Anne spentincreasing amounts of time at Sheykh Obeyd. In 1915 she left the Crabbet stud farm to the care of her daughter and lived the remaining years of her life in Egypt. Shortly before her death in 1917 she inherited the title of Baroness Wentworth.
