A violin that was played on RMS Titanic on the night it sank has been sold at a British auction for more than £1.1 million ($1.7 million), the Los Angeles Times reports, triple its expected selling price of between £200,000 and £300,000.
The instrument was sold at Henry Aldridge and Son, a British auction house that specializes in Titanic-related memorabilia, having been discovered in 2006. The violin was played the night of the shipwreck on April 14, 1912 by second-class passenger Wallace Hartley, one of the hundreds who died in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in modern history.
Hartley is believed to have played alongside his ensemble as the ship sank into the North Atlantic, a scene that was iconicized in James Cameron's 1997 film "Titanic," in which the violinist and his group were shown performing several songs for anxious passengers.
Initially cheerful music was played to keep the passengers calm, but as the effects of the iceberg hitting the ship became harder for the crew to dismiss, the ensemble began playing a much more solemn piece, "Nearer, My God, to Thee."
Other objects auctioned off on Saturday, Oct. 19 included Hartley's travel bag in which the violin was recovered in after the ship sank, some of his sheet music and the ship's original insurance document, as well as the prop violin that was used in the film "Titanic," used by actor Jonathan Evans-Jones who played Hartley.
According to the Los Angeles Times, extensive testing was done on the objects, including Hartley's violin, to ensure that they were authentic pieces.
Hartley's violin was presumably given to him by his fiancée as an engagement present, and is thought to have been crafted in Germany in around 1880.
Click here to see a photo of the original violin owned and played by Wallace Hartley on the night of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.
