Cremona, Venice, Brescia — in the right hands.
For more than two decades, Roman Goronok has quietly placed the work of the great Italian masters with the musicians, collectors, and institutions who will write their next chapter.
A boutique practice at the intersection of art, music, and patrimony.
Founded in 2002, The Roman Goronok Company advises collectors, family offices, foundations, and professional musicians on the acquisition and stewardship of fine and rare stringed instruments.
The work is private and long-term, grounded in scholarship, connoisseurship, and the belief that exceptional instruments fulfil their purpose only when placed in the right hands.
There's no difference between a very fine da Vinci or Rembrandt and one of these. As much as a da Vinci may be beautiful to the eye, one of these speaks to more senses than that. NetJets, Master of the Strings, 2021
If you want to be a racing driver, it's no good practicing on a tractor. If you've achieved a certain level of self-expression with your instrument, you need an instrument fine enough to allow you to develop your voice without limits. NetJets, Master of the Strings, 2021
Music has the ability to heal, to educate, and to create more tolerant human beings. Foreword to Portfolio of Instruments, 2010
If the likes of Beethoven is worth giving sound to, then you have to have the right instrument to perform it on. NetJets, Master of the Strings, 2021
Selected instruments.
A representative selection of the instruments the firm has attended — drawn from the public record of the Tarisio Cozio Archive.
Coverage.
Profiles, market commentary, and feature pieces in the international press of finance, luxury, and the arts.
The violin broker to billionaires.
A relentless detective and matchmaker.
Received in confidence.
The firm's work brings it into conversation with collectors, foundations, and institutions whose relationship to these instruments is one of care. Initial conversations are private and obligation-free.
A practice, by introduction.
Since 2002, The Roman Goronok Company has advised collectors, musicians, foundations, and family offices on the acquisition, placement, and stewardship of exceptional instruments. The work is private, scholarly, and patient.
The Roman Goronok Company is not a retail establishment. There is no shop, no public inventory, no commission structure that depends on volume. The work is conducted by introduction and referral, in confidence.
Engagements take whatever shape the circumstance calls for: an acquisition, a placement, a written valuation, a stewardship review, or an introduction into the broader international trade. Most span months. Some — the slow assembly of a collection, the placement of a defining instrument with a long-term custodian — span years.
The firm's first concern in any transaction is not its speed or its maximum yield, but the quality of the placement. Exceptional instruments fulfil their purpose only when held in the right hands.
Four lines of work.
Each engagement is bespoke. The firm's work falls broadly within four headings, undertaken individually or in combination.
Acquisition
Finding the right instrument for a custodian seeking one. The firm draws on more than two decades of relationships within the international trade, and a continuous record of access to instruments rarely brought to public market. Engagements range from a single defining piece to the slow assembly of a collection.
Sale & Placement
When an instrument is to pass from one custodian to the next, the firm's first concern is the quality of the next custodianship — not the speed or the maximum yield of the transaction. Placements are conducted privately and confidentially, outside the public auction market, with the instrument's continued well‑being as the first criterion.
Valuation & Certification
Independent written valuations, certificates of authenticity, condition reports, and provenance research, undertaken in cooperation with recognised international authorities. Prepared for the purposes of insurance, estate planning, divestment, charitable contribution, or internal portfolio review — and toward the instrument's continuing documented record.
Stewardship
Ongoing counsel on the care, insurance, restoration, performance loan, and eventual passage of an instrument across generations. The firm acts as a permanent point of reference across the long life of the work entrusted to its custodian.
On the subject.
A small selection of the questions principals most often raise in early conversations.
Why these instruments?
Fine Italian stringed instruments — primarily those of Cremona, Venice, Brescia, Milan, Naples, and Turin from the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — are what classical music as we know it is made of. They are simultaneously functioning professional tools, cultural patrimony, and art. Three hundred years on, they remain in continuous use; the literature written for them still has voice through them.
The supply is finite and steadily contracting through institutional acquisition. Demand grows with the global expansion of classical music education and concert culture. Values have appreciated over the entire traded existence of these instruments and have not, in aggregate, declined through any documented period. The acquisition of such an instrument is its preservation. Its preservation is, in due course, its sounding — which is its purpose.
How is authentication actually conducted?
Authentication of a fine instrument rests on the combined judgment of recognised experts in the international trade — the small group of dealers and scholars who have spent decades examining the work of a particular school or maker.
A reliable attribution is supported by physical examination by such experts, certificates of authenticity from one or more of them, dendrochronological analysis of the wood, photographic documentation, and a coherent provenance record. No single test is dispositive; the standard is convergent expert testimony.
How are fine instruments valued?
Value is determined by maker, period, condition, completeness of original parts, tonal qualities, provenance, and the comparable record of recent sales — both public and private.
A late-period Stradivari in fine condition with a documented performance history commands a different value from an early or restored example. The public auction record visible to the broader market reflects only a fraction of significant transactions, most of which occur privately; informed valuation requires access to that private record.
What role does dendrochronology and imaging play?
Dendrochronology — the dating of wood by tree-ring analysis — establishes that the wood used in an instrument is consistent with the claimed period of manufacture. CT imaging and high-resolution photographic comparison allow internal construction, repair history, and edge work to be evaluated without invasive examination.
Both are now standard supplements to expert visual analysis, particularly for instruments at the highest tier.
What does stewardship involve once an instrument is acquired?
Active stewardship involves insurance specific to fine instruments, climate-appropriate storage, regular examination by a qualified luthier, considered restoration, documentation of any work performed, and — where applicable — informed decision-making about whether the instrument should be played, loaned, or held.
The firm advises on each of these matters and maintains relationships with the relevant restorers, insurers, and institutions.
What does discretion mean, in practice?
Discretion means that the identities of principals, the particulars of transactions, the timing of acquisitions and sales, and the contents of valuations are not disclosed outside the parties to the engagement.
The firm does not maintain a public inventory, does not announce sales, and does not name clients without explicit consent. Where past instruments are referenced — as on these pages — the references are drawn exclusively from the public historical record.
A statement of practice.
Every instrument transacted through the firm is subject to comprehensive due diligence.
This includes documented provenance research, examination by recognised experts, written condition reports detailing all observable work and restoration, dendrochronological analysis where appropriate, and confirmation of clear title.
The firm discloses, in writing and in advance of any transaction, the entirety of an instrument's known restoration and repair history. Material information is not withheld. Where uncertainty exists in the historical record — as is often the case with instruments of three hundred years' standing — that uncertainty is stated rather than disguised.
Membership in CINOA, the AADLA, and the VSA reflects the firm's commitment to the ethical standards of the international trade. The firm's authentication discipline also reflects the principal's M.A. dissertation work at Sotheby's Institute of Art — supervised in part by Charles Beare, the senior recognised authority on Italian stringed instruments — on the criteria by which authentication experts in the international art market are themselves identified and recognised. The question has direct bearing on every transaction the firm undertakes. The firm's continuing reputation, and the integrity of every instrument's continuing provenance record, rest on the principle that every party to a transaction will be made aware of everything the firm itself knows.
Roman Goronok.
A great instrument fulfils its purpose only in the right hands.
Roman Goronok is founder of The Roman Goronok Company, specialising in fine and rare stringed instruments.
Since 2002 he has advised collectors, musicians, foundations, and family offices on the acquisition, placement, and stewardship of exceptional instruments by Stradivari, Guarneri, Goffriller, Guadagnini, and their contemporaries.
Born in St Petersburg in 1978, Roman is the son of luthier Michael Goronok and violinist Eugenia Poustyreva. He trained as a violinist in Cleveland, San Francisco, and Cologne before a serious accident brought his performing career to an unexpected close.
That loss became the beginning of a second vocation: helping great instruments find the musicians and custodians who will write their next chapter.
He holds an M.A. in Art Business from Sotheby's Institute of Art and the University of Manchester, with a dissertation on the criteria by which authentication experts in the art market are identified and engaged — supervised by Charles Beare and Professor Henry Lydiate. He is the author of Portfolio of Instruments (2010), and a member of CINOA, the AADLA, and the VSA.
Selected instruments.
Instruments the firm has attended over its history, drawn from the public historical record of the Tarisio Cozio Archive.
Matteo Goffriller
Matteo Goffriller
Matteo Goffriller
Giuseppe Guarneri fil. Andreae
Francesco Gobetti
Carlo Antonio Testore
G. B. Guadagnini
G. B. Guadagnini
G. B. Guadagnini
Particulars of current and past instruments, certificates of authenticity, and historical provenance are discussed in confidence with qualified principals.
A representative engagement.
In illustration of the firm's method. Names and identifying particulars have been altered or omitted.
A European private collector with an existing holding of fine French and Italian instruments engaged the firm in pursuit of a defining cello — an instrument of the first Italian tier, suitable as the principal object in a refined holding and as a potential anchor for the collection's eventual transfer to the next generation of the family.
The mandate was unhurried but exacting: a cello by one of the great names of the Cremonese, Venetian, or Milanese schools, in fine original condition, with documented provenance reaching at least into the nineteenth century, and unencumbered by complicated title or contested attribution. The budget was substantial. The timeframe was open.
Over twenty-two months, the firm examined eleven cellos across Europe and North America, of which four advanced to formal evaluation. Two were declined on conservation grounds; one fell out of consideration after a question of attribution arose in the certificate review. The fourth — an Italian cello of the mid-eighteenth century with certificates from two recognised authorities and a sympathetic restoration history documented over four decades — was acquired through private negotiation at terms favourable to the collector.
The instrument now resides as the principal piece in the holding it was acquired to anchor. Title is clear; condition is documented; intergenerational transfer is contemplated in the broader planning of the collection.
This is the firm's method, in summary: clarity of mandate, breadth of search, depth of evaluation, patience in negotiation, and care in placement.
Portfolio of Instruments.
An illustrated monograph of notable instruments and bows. 2010.
In the tradition of the great twentieth-century dealer catalogues — those of Hill, Hamma, Beare, and Bein — Portfolio of Instruments documents in colour plate and scholarly commentary a selection of significant violins, violas, cellos, and bows from the firm's stewardship.
The volume documents instruments by Antonio Stradivari (the 1701 ex-Dushkin and the 1718 Golden Period), Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù (c. 1730), Joseph Guarneri filius Andreae, Carlo Bergonzi (1741 and 1744), Nicolò Amati, Matteo Goffriller, Francesco Gobetti, Santo Seraphin, J. B. Guadagnini, Camillus Camilli, and a Gasparo da Salò cello of c. 1600 — one of only three surviving. The collection also includes French bows by Pajeot and Peccatte, the Kittel Russian bows of c. 1850, and violas by Leclerc and Pique.
The volume is intended both as a record of the firm's work and as a contribution to the literature of the fine instrument trade.
From the volume.
Four plates from the monograph, representing the breadth of the collection — from Brescia in 1600 to Cremona in the high Golden Period.
Photographs reproduced from Portfolio of Instruments (2010). Plates and commentary © The Roman Goronok Company.
Coverage & commentary.
Profiles, feature pieces, and market commentary in the international press of finance, luxury, and the arts.
The violin broker to billionaires.
A relentless detective and matchmaker, finding great masters' violins.
A former professional violinist who reordered his priorities and built one of the leading firms in fine and rare stringed instruments.View the listing →
One of the world's leading brokers of antique stringed instruments.
These are artworks as well as instruments, and hold the same intrinsic value as, say, a Rembrandt or a Da Vinci, regardless of trends in art.Read the article →
Most of my job is in finding these instruments, in keeping track of them, and in — as someone once said of the art world — knowing which painting is on whose wall.Read the article →
I have my little black book, so I know where these violins are, who's using them, which players may be near the end of their careers, which players are coming up and need one.Read the article →
Received in confidence.
The firm's work brings it into conversation with collectors, foundations, and institutions whose relationship to these instruments is one of care. Initial conversations are private and obligation-free.
Your note has been received. Roman reads correspondence personally and will reply directly — most replies within a day or two, sometimes longer when travelling.
Or by direct correspondence: roman@romangoronok.com
Correspondence is read personally and answered as time allows. The firm declines unsolicited offers of inventory.
Working languages: English, Russian, German.