A Manhattan violin shop lost a $400,000, 176-year-old fiddle it had on consignment — by lending it to a stranger who never returned, according to lawsuit filed last week.
Kyungah Yang placed her 1837 J.F. Pressenda violin with the Midtown shop in 1998, according to the $800,000 Manhattan federal suit. The store was supposed to sell the instrument for $285,000, but it never found a buyer.
In 2011, Yang, of South Korea, wanted to pick up her violin from the shop — by that time owned by Luthier Emmanuel Gradoux-Matt — but she was repeatedly put off, the lawsuit charges.
In January, Gradoux-Matt admitted he’d lost the piece — now valued at $400,000, according to the suit.
Gradoux-Matt “informed [her] that he had let an individual in New York borrow [her] rare violin for a trial, and that the individual never returned,” the suit charges. Gradoux-Matt wouldn’t comment.