Looking at Mozart

After years of dispute over authenticity regarding which portraits actually depict the musical prodigy, researchers are confident of the authenticy of the 12 displayed at the exhibition Mozart Pictures-Pictures of Mozart that runs through 14 April at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. The images add much-needed historical accuracy to the popular likeness that adorns everything from chocolate wrappers to novelty liquor bottles.

It includes two authentic portraits of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that are new to the public. One is a 1783 miniature, painted on a tortoiseshell snuffbox in the last ten years of his life, and is the last en face, or full face view of Mozart from 1781 until his death. The inscription reads "Johann Mozart", the composer’s first given name. The Mozarteum Foundation deems the portrait to be by the painter Joseph Grassi, whom Mozart met in Vienna.

 

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