A rare 300-year-old cello, made by the Italian craftsman Antonio Stradivari, failed to meet its reserve price of $1.47 million US at an online auction.
The website of Tarisio auctioneers showed only one bid of $1.34 million US at Friday's virtual auction — far below the expected sale of between $1.47 and $1.97 million.
"We are now working to put together an after-auction sale with interested parties," a spokesman for Tarisio told Reuters.
The less-than-ideal bid is a disappointment for the sellers — the family of late British cellist Amaryliss Fleming, who died in 1999. The musician was the sister of James Bond author Ian Fleming.
Proceeds of the sale were to be channelled to the Royal College of Music in London where she had studied and taught.
The auction record for a cello, also made by Stradivari, is $1.03 million, sold in 1999. It is currently on loan to the Canada Council for the Arts, which values it at $4 million.
Stradivari's instruments are highly prized for their sound, which projects clearly with rich tones.
Stradivari, who died in 1737, made around 1,100 instruments — mostly violins — of which around 650 survive. The Fleming cello is one of 60 surviving cellos.
World renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinist Yitzhak Perlman both play Stradivari instruments.
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