Record for Hogworth’s instrument collection

Christopher Hogwood’s collection of instruments achieved a house record of £430,000 (including a buyer’s premium of 20 percent) at Bath auction room, Gardiner and Houlgate, recently.

The star of the show, was this rare 17th-century French guitar by the famous French luthier Jean-Baptiste Voboam, which sold for a hammer price of £120,000, more than four times its estimate.

The 3ft 1in (94 cm) instrument, with lozenges of gilt-backed red-stained tortoiseshell, ivory, ebony and mother-of-pearl, included an ivory plaque at the inscribed Voboam a Paris 1699.

The conductor Christopher Hogwood, who died last September aged 73, was the founder of the Academy of Ancient Music, one of the first and best-known period instrument orchestras.  The auction followed a memorial service for the renowned musicologist at Handel’s parish church, St George’s in London’s Hanover Square with many people attending both.

An 18th-century clavichord by Johann Adolph Hass sold for £82,000, more than twice its estimate.