The violin played by the bandmaster of the Titanic as the liner sank beneath the waves is to go on display at a museum marking the tragedy in Northern Ireland, officials said Monday.

The instrument belonging to Wallace Hartley was found strapped to his body after he drowned with some 1,500 others on board the supposedly unsinkable ship in 1912.

It has an inscription on the back from the 34-year-old’s fiancee to mark their engagement.

For decades the rosewood violin was believed lost but it was found in the attic of a house in northwest England in 2006.

It will be displayed at the Titanic Belfast exhibition from Sept. 18 through Oct. 13 before it goes to auction in Wiltshire, southwest England on Oct. 19.

“We are honored and excited that Titanic Belfast has been chosen to display Wallace Hartley’s violin which he played on RMS Titanic,” said the museum’s chief executive Tim Husbands.

“This could very well be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for visitors to see one of the world’s most famous and most valuable Titanic artifacts before it goes to auction.”

The band played the hymn “Nearer, My God, To Thee” to calm passengers while they climbed into lifeboats as the Titanic sank beneath the icy waves in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg.

Hartley and his seven fellow band members all died.

RTWT