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Tiny portrait identified as thick-haired Mozart

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 01/12/2013 2:15 PM | Comments: 0

This undated photo provided by the International Mozarteum Foundation shows Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Researchers at Salzburg's Mozarteum museum announced Friday, Jan. 11, 2013, that they have definitely identified the person in the picture as the musical genius. And it's not any likeness either. They say that of 14 known portraits, it is one of only a few showing him gazing directly at the viewer and without his signature white powdered wig. (AP Photo/Stiftung Mozarteum) (CP)

VIENNA, Austria — A round-faced young man with a thick head of hair depicted on a tiny 18th-century portrait that had the experts puzzled for centuries now has a name — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Researchers at Salzburg’s Mozarteum museum announced Friday that they have definitely identified the person in the picture as the musical genius.

And it’s not any likeness either.

They say that of 14 known portraits, it is one of only a few showing him gazing directly at the viewer and without his signature white powdered wig. Expert Cristoph Grosspietch says the museum’s findings are based on examinations of the portrait and historical records of the era.

He says the same experts concluded that another portrait, showing a youth holding a bird’s nest, was not Mozart, as had been believed.

— The Associated Press

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