The Value of a Mozart Portrait
There remains a great deal of mystery regarding the actual monetary worth of an authentic Mozart portrait. Due to their extreme scarcity, many scholars feel a ballpark estimate of a contemporary portrait that can be linked, or presumably connected to Mozart during his lifetime could fetch in excess of 25 million dollars. But such off-the-cuff quotes cannot be considered reliable without first understanding the evolving system of iconographic classifications still in development.
It goes without saying that Mozart had his portrait captured many more times than what is included in the historical canon. Mozart's fame was widespread. His image naturally would have been reproduced many times throughout Europe, immortalized in ink, gouache and pencil.
Scholars now concede that modern research can no longer depend on outmoded classifications that fail to take into account the sheer magnitude of Mozart's fame and the reliance on reference to particular citation of said portraits in letters or eyewitness accounts.
A long lost miniature portrait of Mozart is just a hint of what vanished or hidden paintings and other icons of Mozart are documented as missing. In her letter to Breitkopf of January 4, 1804 (Mozart Documents #n1364, lines 42ff), Nannerl stated that her brother had sent her his portrait in 1783 "in a very small format as a pastel." The worth of this object would probably be in the tens of millions at the least, notwithstanding the air of mystery surrounding its disappearance.
Private collectors have reportedly paid a fortune for images said to be of Mozart, even without the benediction of such prestigious institutions as the Mozarteum in Mozart's home town of Salzburg. The Gemaldegallerie's recent announcement of a supposedly new Mozart portrait find (Edlinger/BCC 2005) instantly catapulted an obscure painting that for seventy years had gathered dust in a Berlin warehouse into international portrait stardom. Even with the controversy swirling around the portrait, some art connoisseurs estimate its value in the 7 figure category, if simply because of its high profile exposure. Still, the portrait is a hotly debated painting, with both pro and con camps firmly entrenched.
Historical Perspectives
The craze to collect Mozartiana started soon after Mozart's death. By the second decade of the 19th century, the still living but almost blind Nannerl Mozart proudly showed her portrait collection to the Novellos during their stay in Salzburg. On the same visit, Mozart's widow, Constanze Nissen (who lived just 3 blocks away), also exhibited Mozart's portraits with a great deal of pride. By the 1850s, the acquisition of Mozart autographs and objects became the pastime of the truly wealthy and powerful. As early as 1890, the Mozarteum had proven to be the greatest storehouse of Mozart artifacts. With authentic pictures, letters and autographs, the collection could be worth in excess of 700 million dollars.
Even the second estate seems to have benefited by the scale and scope of Mozart's fame. Nineteenth century copies of Mozart engravings have seen a vast increase in value over the last 10 years. And then there's the music...
On Wednesday, November 21, 1990, Sotheby's London offered for sale Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Fantasia and Sonata in C minor K.475 and 457, from the collection of the Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. It was purchased for £880,000 ($1,732,016) by Otto Haas (a London dealer) who was bidding on behalf of Austria, where the manuscript entered the collection of the Mozarteum in Salzburg. At that time the price achieved was equal to the second highest price ever paid for a music manuscript (the autograph manuscript of Schumann's Piano concerto in A minor, which was offered for sale at Sotheby's London in November 1989).
Since that acquisition, prices for contemporary Mozartiana autographs, letters and miniatures have continued to soar. With the recent acquisition of the Doris Stock miniature (slightly bigger than a quarter) for 1.5 million dollars (Mozarteum 2005) the ever scarce market for historical objects associated with the historical Mozart promises to offer us a glimpse into a truly fascinating and evolving rarity market.
