The Omega Ensemble’s next concert, Eternal Quartets, will feature a piece of film memorabilia picked up by a donor at Russell Crowe’s now infamous Art of Divorce auction. The Ensemble’s principal violinist Alexandra Osborne will be playing the bow used by Crowe when preparing for the 2003 film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. The bow, a Victor Fétique silver mounted bow, circa 1920, with round stick, ebony frog with silver rings and pearl eyes, silver overlaid adjuster and an ivory head plate, was sold for $10,606.68, including the buyer’s premium, at Crowe’s post-divorce auction through Sotheby’s.

Alexandra Osborne with Russell Crowe’s bow. Photo courtesy of Omega Ensemble

Crowe played the role of Captain Jack Aubrey in Master and Commander, playing a violin in the film. “At the beginning of the Master & Commander shoot in Rosarito, Mexico, the props department handed me a dark and heavy German violin to use in the movie,” Crowe said in a statement on the violin’s provenance. “It was my thought that the Captain (Jack Aubrey), as gruff as he may be, would play a finer instrument. Peter Weir, (the...