Searching for traces of Guarneri, Carlo Chiesa and Duane Rosengard discovered Stradivari's will, dated 1729.

ECONOMIST: Celebrating a mighty era of violin-making

Mr. Becker worked on some of the most famous Stradivari and Guarneri violins at his Chicago store, Carl Becker and Son.

WSJ: Master of Chicago Family's Violin-Making Tradition

The experts noted that Cremonese violin-making survived Stradivari and Carlo Bergonzi, the last of the great Cremonese masters who died in 1747.

ECONOMIST: Celebrating a mighty era of violin-making

In recent years most summers he took his 17th-century violin, made by Antonio Stradivari, to Germany and played with a professional group.

ECONOMIST: William Sunderman

Stradivari himself made around 1, 100 instruments, a huge number by any standard, because he lived to be 93 and worked obsessively to his dying breath.

ECONOMIST: Violin-making

Museums, copyists, restorers and dealers watched with interest as the price of Stradivari violins soared, pulling along behind them the violins made by several dozen other Italian craftsmen working between the 16th and 18th centuries.

ECONOMIST: Celebrating a mighty era of violin-making