Modeled after the "Betts" made by Antonio Stradivari in 1704, the "Venus" boasts a beautiful top, made of Sitka spruce from northwestern Canada.  Her two piece highly flamed maple back, neck and ribs, are from Bosnia, and the whole corpus is gently antiqued and hand rubbed with oil varnish. 

Thurmond Knight completed the "Venus" at 6 p.m., December 1, 2008, and then went outdoors to get more wood for the shop stove.  In the cold dusky night, he saw a brilliant cluster of heavenly bodies lying in the southwestern sky, well above the horizon, about two hours from setting in the west.  The thin sickle of the moon in early first quarter was sparkling just to the left of Venus and Jupiter, the three of them forming a perfect isosceles triangle.  Researching the celestial spectacle, Thurmond learned the rare close conjunction of the moon and two planets won't occur again for many decades. 

Astronomers theorize a similar extremely close conjunction of Venus and Jupiter may have been the "star" sighted over Bethlehem some 2008 years ago. 

Feeling it was no mere coincidence the violin was completed on the evening of such a brilliant Lunar/Venusian/Jovian conjunction, Thurmond named the instrument  "Venus" in honor of this stunning heavenly event.

The Venus Violin can be purchased for $12,000.