Musician ‘fiddled violinist out of thousands during instrument sale’
A LEADING violinist has been taken to court by his former pupil over a Landolfi violin valued at £80,000, amid claims he left her out of pocket after she sold it to him in desperation.
Prof Mateja Marinkovic, a musician and honorary associate at the Royal Academy of Music, has been accused by a former student of giving her an overvalued French violin instead of paying the amount she had asked.
Ruzica West, 36, told the court she had sold Prof Marinkovic the 18th-century Landolfi instrument when “desperate” for cash three years ago.
Ms West, of Ilford, Essex, claims that Prof Marinkovic, formerly her tutor at the Purcell School of Music, a specialist school for musically gifted children in Bushey, Herts, did not pay in full.
She is suing him at Central London County Court, claiming the musician, who is currently working in China, left her £12,500 out of pocket.
Prof Marinkovic insists he does not owe his former student a penny, having already handed her £26,000 cash and a replacement violin in exchange for the Landolfi.
Ms West and her mother, Olgica West, 61, told Judge Ian Avent she agreed to sell the 250-year-old instrument to Prof Marinkovic in 2016. She said she had been given it by her grandmother in 2002, with the instrument valued for insurance purposes at £80,000.
She conceded she agreed to accept £40,000 from Prof Marinkovic because she wanted a quick sale. Her former tutor paid £26,000 in cash, plus a French violin, the court was told. Ms West told the judge that Prof Marinkovic had now relocated to China with £12,500 still owing, due to the French violin being worth much less than she was told. As well as suing Prof Marinkovic, she and her mother are bringing a claim against the valuer of the French instrument.
“I believe that Mateja gave an assurance to us that the French violin was worth between £12,000 to £14,000,” the mother, Olgica West, told the judge of an alleged conversation in 2016. A professional valuation in November 2017 revealed a price of just £1,500, she told the court.
Prof Marinkovic was described by Judge Avent as a “leading protagonist because he was the contracting party”. The professor, who did not attend the pretrial court hearing and was not represented, was now “somewhere in China”, the judge noted.
He is described by the Royal Academy of Music, where he is an honorary associate, as “one of the leading violinists, recording artists and teachers of his generation”. Outside court, Ms West said she got to know Prof Marinkovic while studying under him at the Purcell School in 1997. She went on to forge a career as a singer, violinist and teacher, but by 2016 had hit hard times. “I was desperate and needed the money. I had to accept his offer because, if I had taken it to an auctioneer, I would have waited for a long time for it to be resold,” she said. The judge adjourned the case, to be fixed for hearing in a few months’ time.