Alfredo Contino

Violin maker
(1890 – c. 1963)

Alfredo Contino was born in 1890 and joined Vincenzo Postiglione's Naples workshop around 1902, at just twelve years old, becoming his most devoted pupil and eventual successor. After Postiglione's retirement in the early 1910s, his sons kept Contino on to make instruments in their father's style, still carrying Postiglione's original labels; Contino's own hand is recognisable in these by his upright, ...Read More angular f-holes and distinctive corner treatment.

His standards stayed genuinely high through the 1920s, both in this ghost-written work and in instruments made under his own name -- slimmer outlines than his master's, corners more fluted but stubbier, purfling ending in a short, faintly awkward "bee-sting" at the corners rather than a clean point. From the 1930s his workmanship and varnish gradually declined; his own labels described him, not inaccurately, as Postiglione's only real pupil, and noted a prize he'd won at a Rome exhibition. He retired sometime in the 1950s and died in the early 1960s, having made roughly 300 violins, 70 cellos, and 15 violas over his career. Read Less

Price History

- The auction record for this maker is $67,000 in Oct 2007, for a cello.
- 97 auction price results.

View all auction prices for Alfredo Contino

FULL SIZE