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Have scientists solved the 230-year-old mystery of Mozart’s real face?
10 March 2025, 12:18 | Updated: 11 March 2025, 15:32
New research may have revealed what Mozart really looked like, using cutting-edge facial reconstruction technology based on the composer’s skull.
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A team of scientists might just have solved one of the great mysteries in the history of classical music: what did Mozart really look like?
Despite having one of the most recognisable portraits of all classical music greats, the Austrian composer’s actual appearance has been something of a mystery for over 230 years.
More than 60 attempts have been made at painting, drawing, or sketching the virtuoso’s likeness, but each portrait looks quite different from the next, leading musicologist and Mozart expert Alfred Einstein to comment: “We have nothing to give us an idea of Mozart’s physical appearance, except for a few mediocre canvases that do not even resemble each other.”
In fact, Barbara Krafft’s portrait which is most widely used to depict Mozart was painted 28 years after his death.
Now, thanks to leading facial reconstruction technology, a team of scientists have made a landmark breakthrough as to Mozart’s real appearance.
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Cicero Moraes, a Brazilian 3D designer specialising in facial reconstruction and prosthetics, has simulated Mozart’s face based on the composer’s skull.
Moraes said: “Our team has been working for over a decade on facial approximations, occasionally helping police forensic teams and constantly reconstructing historical figures.
“During previous studies, we discovered by chance that there was a skull attributed to Mozart.”
The skull in question has its own chequered past. As was tradition at the time, Mozart was initially buried in an individual plot but his body was later exhumed and moved to a communal grave to make space for new burials.
One of the gravediggers, however, kept Mozart’s skull when he came to be reburied. It passed hands several times over the years, but seemingly disappeared in 1895. The skull miraculously ‘reappeared’ at the Hyrtl Foundation in 1901 and was officially donated to Salzburg’s Mozarteum the following year.
It is generally accepted that the skull did indeed belong to Mozart, but with inconclusive DNA tests as recently as 2012, we can’t know this for certain.
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Assuming the skull is legitimate, this exciting new discovery could mean we see Mozart’s real face for the first time since he died in 1791.
“There were images of the skull with spatial references so it was possible to reconstruct it,” lead author Cicero Moraes continued.
“The condition was good, although the mandible was not included and some teeth were missing. But it was possible to reconstruct these and recover the complete skull through statistical data and anatomical coherence.”
He explained how various imaging techniques were used to estimate Mozart’s appearance: “We used soft tissue thickness markers, which allowed us to get an idea of the limits of the skin on the face. We also projected some structures such as the nose, ears, lips, etc.
“Both were based on measurements taken from hundreds of adult European individuals, providing a robust basis for approximation.”
The team also used a ‘virtual donor’ head which they adjusted to suit Mozart’s skull, to confirm their data-based approach.
With the face completed, they furnished the new portrait with hair and clothing based on fashions during Mozart’s lifetime.
Finally, they compared their image with the most accurate portraits from Mozart’s lifetime – Joseph Lange’s unfinished 1783 painting, endorsed by his wife Constanze as his close likeness, and Dora Stock’s 1789 sketch.
“It was quite compatible with both works,” Moraes noted.
