In the UK, the violin on which the head of the ship's orchestra played to the passengers of the sinking Titanic has gone under the hammer. According to Agence France-Presse , the instrument was sold for 900 thousand pounds (about a million euros).

The starting price of the violin was 50 pounds, but immediately after the start of trading it began to rise sharply. The main struggle took place between four anonymous auction participants who participated by telephone. The name of the winning bidder is not disclosed.

The violin, which was played by the ship's bandleader Wallace Hartley during the sinking of the Titanic, was sold complete with a leather case with his initials. The musician received it as a gift from his bride in honor of their engagement, which took place shortly before his appointment on the liner. The instrument still bears a dedicatory inscription written by the violinist’s fiancée.

Two weeks after the Titanic sank, rescuers recovered Hartley's violin from the water along with his body. She was returned to the musician's fiancee, who in turn handed her over to the Salvation Army. After this, the instrument was considered lost for a long time, but in 2006 it was discovered in the attic of a house in the north-east of England. At the same time, the authenticity of the violin raised serious doubts, which experts were able to resolve only recently.

According to eyewitnesses, during the sinking of the Titanic, the ship's band, led by Hartley, played continuously at the main staircase to cheer up the panicking passengers. This point was reflected in most of the films dedicated to the sinking of the Titanic, including the famous film by James Cameron, released in 1997.

As a result of the shipwreck, all eight musicians of the orchestra, including its leader, were killed. The last composition they performed was the Christian hymn “Closer, Lord, to You.” According to some reports, when the musicians began to be washed off the deck by a stream of water, Hartley said: “Gentlemen, I say goodbye to you!”

In total, as a result of the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912, almost one and a half thousand people died, while only about 700 were saved. The shipwreck was one of the largest in the history of navigation. Officially, the cause of the ship's death is considered to be a collision with an iceberg, but various researchers and scientists still put forward their own versions of what happened.

Titanic violinist's instrument goes under the hammer