New York professor accused of stealing famous $500K cello bow from French widow

Aug 14, 2023

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A former New York professor and famed violinist has been accused of stealing a world-renowned cello bow — valued at a half-million dollars — from the widow of a French bow-maker to whom he refused to return the prized instrument, The Post has learned.

Ex-Manhattanville College music professor Olivier Fluchaire, 48, allegedly failed to send promised payments to Severine Lauxerrois for several of her late husband’s bows — including the “FX Tourte bow,” now estimated to be worth more than $500,000, according to prosecutors.

The victim’s husband — renowned French bow-maker Pascal Lauxerrois — left his extensive collection of violin and cello bows to his wife after he died in 1994, according to the criminal complaint against Fluchaire.

Fluchaire picked bows from the collection to sell on consignment to his violin students and had an “amicable” relationship with Lauxerrois for decades, the court documents state.

But that changed in 2013 when Fluchaire expressed his interest in the valuable FX Tourte bow. The cello bow was fashioned by famed French bow-maker François Tourte out of Pernambuco wood and with silver and ivory mounts, according to the complaint.

Lauxerrois had initially balked at selling the bow because she was saving it as collateral for retirement, but eventually agreed to selling it for €100,000 in June 2015 — a big bargain considering the bow was valued at $350,000 in 2016, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said.

After striking a deal, Fluchaire flew to France to pick up the bow and gave Lauxerrois a down-payment of €15,000 in August 2015, according to prosecutors.

He followed up with only three smaller payments — that still left €70,000 outstanding despite “several promises” he’d make good on his debts, the DA’s office said.

By 2019, Lauxerrois grew tired of Fluchaire’s antics and asked him to return the cello bow and nine other bows that he allegedly hadn’t paid her for — only for Fluchaire to “repeatedly evade” her request for the past four years, according to the complaint.

But Fluchaire couldn’t return the FX Tourte cello bow. He had first consigned it to Salchow & Sons Bowmakers in Manhattan before pulling the item and selling it to a Chicago-based professional violinists for $167,500 on Feb. 27, 2016, prosecutors alleged.

Still, Fluchaire allegedly made “repeated appointments” between July 2019 and September 2021 to return the cello bow to Lauxerrois — though he no longer had it in his possession.

Fluchaire was arrested May 22 and charged with grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property and other raps for the alleged theft of the FX Tourte bow and nine other bows worth over $3,000.

He had been an associate professor of music at Manhattanville College, a small liberal arts college in Purchase, NY, for more than a decade before he was fired on June 30.

“Mr. Fluchaire is no longer employed at Manhattanville,” a Manhattanville College spokesperson confirmed to The Post Tuesday.

Fluchaire had been touted by his faculty page as being “one of today’s most exciting new violinists” including performances with the American Chamber Orchestra, the Camerata Lysy Orchestra and performed several times at Carnegie Hall.

Fluchaire appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court for a hearing in the case Tuesday.

Both he and his attorney Kaylee Kreitenberg declined comment after the proceeding.

His next court date is Sept. 5.

Additional reporting by Rthvika Suvarna