<a href="http://michaelorenz.blogspot.co.at/2012/09/joseph-langes-mozart-portrait.html">http://michaelorenz.blogspot.co.at/2012/09/joseph-langes-mozart-portrait.html</a><br><h3 class="post-title entry-title">
Joseph Lange's Mozart Portrait
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Lange" target="_blank">Joseph Lange</a>'s
unfinished portrait of Mozart is one of the most popular and best
known images of the composer. Its somber coloring and its unfinished
state have made it a visual icon of Mozart in his Vienna years. Mozart's
life, being tragically cut short, is hauntingly paraphrased by the
incompleteness of the painting.<br>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E1e15_Apkcc/UFmQRPDT1CI/AAAAAAAAAbg/WFD3i247b6E/s1600/Mozart.jpg" style="margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em"><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E1e15_Apkcc/UFmQRPDT1CI/AAAAAAAAAbg/WFD3i247b6E/s1600/Mozart.jpg" border="0"></a></div>
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And yet Mozart scholarship doesn't even know for sure when Mozart's
brother-in-law painted this portrait. In 1913 Edward J. Dent claimed
that it originates from 1791. After having met sharp criticism from <a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9odore_de_Wyzewa" target="_blank">Téodor de Wyzewa</a> in a review in the <a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Revue_des_Deux_Mondes" target="_blank"><i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i></a> and Edward Speyer, Dent in a later edition of his book <i>Mozart's Operas </i>corrected the dating to 1782<i>. </i> In an article in the 1926 <i>Salzburger Museumsblätter</i> art historian <a href="http://www.salzburg.com/wiki/index.php/Julius_Leisching" target="_blank">Julius Leisching</a> assigned the Lange portrait to 1790. This dating did not gain acceptance either and in 1931 Roland Tenschert in his book <i>Mozart. Ein Künstlerleben in Bildern und Dokumenten</i>
presented the portrait as having been painted in 1782. Otto Erich
Deutsch seems to have pondered for several decades over a possible
dating of Lange's work. In 1956 he dated the portrait with "winter of
1782-83, curiously describing it as "a sketch in oils, unfortunately
never completed". This dating was influenced by the assumption that
Lange's portrait of Mozart was somehow related to his <a href="http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/cgi-bin/foxweb/huntsearch/DetailedResults.fwx?collection=art&SearchTerm=43746&reqMethod=Link" target="_blank">portrait of Constanze Mozart</a>, which since 1931belongs to the University of Glasgow as part of the <a href="http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/specialcollections/collectionsa-z/zavertalcollection/" target="_blank">Zavertal Collection</a> and is presumed to have been one of the two small portraits that Mozart sent to his father on <a href="http://www.zeno.org/Musik/M/Schiedermair,+Ludwig/Die+Briefe+W.A.+Mozarts+und+seiner+Familie/Zweiter+Band/Neunte+Reihe/249.+an+den+Vater,+Wien,+3.+April+1783" target="_blank">3 April 1783</a>:
"Auch folgen die 2 Portraits; – wünsche nur daß sie damit zufrieden
seyn möchten; mir scheint sie gleichen beyde gut, und alle die es
gesehen sind der nemlichen Meynung." ("The two portraits will follow; – I
only wish that you will be pleased with them. I think they are both
good likenesses and all who have seen them are of the same opinion.")
Within the next five years however Deutsch changed his opinion again and
in his 1961 book <i>Mozart und seine Welt in zeitgenössischen Bildern</i>
(published as part of the NMA) he assigned the Lange portrait to 1789.
This dating (which since then has been generally accepted by Mozart
scholarship) is based on Mozart's remark in a <a href="http://www.zeno.org/Musik/M/Schiedermair,+Ludwig/Die+Briefe+W.A.+Mozarts+und+seiner+Familie/Zweiter+Band/Zehnte+Reihe/297.+an+die+Gattin,+Dresden,+16.+April+1789" target="_blank">letter to his wife from 16 April 1789</a>:
"ich möchte gerne wissen ob schwager Hofer den Tag nach meiner Abreise
gekommen ist? ob er öfters kommt, so wie er mir versprochen hat; – ob
die Langischen bisweilen kommen? – ob an den <i>Portrait</i>
fortgearbeitet wird?" ("I want to know if brother-in-law Hofer visited
the day after my departure? If he is visiting more often, as he promised
me; – Whether the Langes come by now and then? – If work on the
portrait is being continued?")<br>
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I have been studying Joseph Lange's life and work for over ten years and
I assume in all modesty that I have seen more of Lange's paintings than
anybody else. Lange's Mozart portrait has been the object of my
scrutiny for a long time and I have always been intrigued as to how its
appearance and its state of preservation have changed during the last 60
years. Moreover I was always sceptic regarding its supposed "state of
incompleteness", which owing to the unusually straight edges of paint on
Mozart's body is at odds with many other unfinished paintings I know.
Could it be that the painting was not unfinished, but represents an
enlargement of an orignal small portrait which then was never completed?
There is a model for this particular procedure. It turns out that this
model is none other than Lange's portrait of Constanze Mozart which
today is on display in Glasgow. That this painting is an enlarged
version of a small portrait (previously 18 x 13 cm, now 32,3 x 24,8 cm)
has long been known and has been pointed out several times in the
literature, most recently in the catalogue of the 1991 Mozart exhibition
in Salzburg. The irregular size of the original portrait (as shown
approximately in the following picture) was caused by cutting and the
obviously bad state of canvas quality on the lower left corner of the
original painting. The enlargement was either sewn or glued to the
original painting after it had been turned about eleven degrees to the
right.<br>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ywLAlesqeyE/UFw0AgBUJOI/AAAAAAAAAew/VlBgcz4rkgo/s1600/Constanze+marked.jpg" style="margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em"><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ywLAlesqeyE/UFw0AgBUJOI/AAAAAAAAAew/VlBgcz4rkgo/s320/Constanze+marked.jpg" border="0" height="320" width="246"></a></div>
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The difference of color between the old and the new canvas becomes
especially visible with the picture's histogram being modified:<br>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VbPNtFQWntw/UFwt7N91cYI/AAAAAAAAAec/vmG6xBknAic/s1600/Constanze+light.jpg" style="margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em"><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VbPNtFQWntw/UFwt7N91cYI/AAAAAAAAAec/vmG6xBknAic/s1600/Constanze+light.jpg" border="0"></a></div>
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It is not known when the Constanze portrait was enlarged. Old black and
white photographs, taken before a very intensive restoration of
Mozart's portrait in the early 1960s, show that the painting underwent a
similar treatment as the painting in Glasgow: i.e. a miniature, showing
only Mozart's head was turned about four degrees to the right and
inserted into a bigger canvas, which was supposed to show Mozart's upper
body and the shape of a piano, but later remained unfinished. A
photograph of the unrestored painting (in deplorable state of
conservation), taken in 1946, eerily shows the distinct contour of the
original small painting:<br>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vPLCO5zl2Kg/UFnK7UnSNpI/AAAAAAAAAcc/wVRlNQ9rOmI/s1600/Mozart,+original.jpg" style="margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vPLCO5zl2Kg/UFnK7UnSNpI/AAAAAAAAAcc/wVRlNQ9rOmI/s400/Mozart,+original.jpg" border="0" height="400" width="340"></a></div>
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The original miniature, about 19 x 15 centimeters in size, looked like
this (in exact size relation to the colored picture above):</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JVmUtYl9fd4/UFnNZblgzhI/AAAAAAAAAck/zDHx_9P8Oio/s1600/Mozart+clip.jpg" style="margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JVmUtYl9fd4/UFnNZblgzhI/AAAAAAAAAck/zDHx_9P8Oio/s1600/Mozart+clip.jpg" border="0"></a></div>
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On 29 June 2010 I visited Mozart's birthplace and examined the Lange
portrait, which at that time had been taken from the exhibition to be
scrutinized by the museum staff. I told Dr. Großpietsch and Dr. Ramsauer
about my hypothesis and had to realize (because the Mozarteum is a
museum like no other) that there is no scholarly documentation on the
1963 restoration of the painting and the Mozarteum had never X-rayed the
portrait. The restoration of course has rendered the visible
distinction between the original minature and the enlargement almost
imperceptible. Not only was the gaping horizontal crack that is visible
on old photographs filled with putty, the edge of the brown paint at the
lower end of the painted area on Mozart's chest was also horizontally
adjusted, as if to hide the tilted original miniature:<br>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-53UXdIW3LxM/UFnpSDZaiAI/AAAAAAAAAdY/etdpzIVTem4/s1600/Mozart+comparison.jpg" style="margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em"><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-53UXdIW3LxM/UFnpSDZaiAI/AAAAAAAAAdY/etdpzIVTem4/s400/Mozart+comparison.jpg" border="0" height="246" width="400"></a></div>
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Given the current state of the painting, the different canvas of the
small original portrait is only discernible as a slightly lower
rectangular area, when looked upon in a very flat angle in backlight.
Therefore I concluded that in the course of the enlargement the small
painting was mounted from behind to the larger canvas. The Mozart
portrait by Joseph Lange is not an unfinished painting of "Mozart at the
Piano", but an unfinished enlargement of an original miniature of
Mozart's head.<br>
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What are the implications of this discovery? The original miniature
portraits of Mozart and his wife painted by Lange, both of which were
later enlarged, could well be the two small paintings that Mozart sent
to his father in April 1783. The Mozart miniature portrait from 1782-83
is "lost", because for over 200 years it has been hidden in plain sight
in the "unfinished" painting of Mozart at the piano. Constanze's small
portrait was successfully resized, while the enlargement of Mozart's
portrait - at some time sent back to Vienna - was never completed. That
Lange had not finished the work by 1812 may well have been caused by the
fact that at this time he had long separated from Constanze's sister
and had started a third family with a woman 30 years his junior. The
enlargement with the addition of the piano could have been the work
Mozart was referring to in his 1789 letter from Dresden ("an den <i>Portrait</i>
fortgearbeitet"). Recently some pseudo-scholars tried to cast doubt on
the authenticity of the Lange portrait. Their aim was twofold: first, to
boost the credibility of the so-called "<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/Hagenauer_Mozart_mid-1780s_press_quality.jpg/345px-Hagenauer_Mozart_mid-1780s_press_quality.jpg" target="_blank">Hagenauer Mozart</a>"
which simply doesn't resemble the man on Lange's painting. And second,
to add probability to the absurd idea that "the man in the red frock"
could have been the small portrait that Mozart sent to Salzburg in 1783.
One proponent of this crude hypothesis even went so far as to visualize
Mozart wearing a pigtail on the Lange portrait, which "can't be seen
because of the chiaroscuro".<br>
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As a portraitist Joseph Lange was one of the best 18th-century amateur
painters I have come across. He enjoyed a first rate education at the
Vienna Academy of Arts and his technique, his shading, his mixture of
skin tones was thoroughly professional. I have never seen any
reproduction of the Salzburg Mozart portrait that really does justice to
the artistry of color and glazing technique of the original. Contrary
to a wide-spread misconception, caused by an entry in <a href="http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Daniel_Preisler" target="_blank">Joachim Daniel Preisler</a>'s
diary, Lange did not give up painting in 1788, but diligently pursued
this activity into his old age. Many of Lange's masterpieces, such as
the group portrait of his mistress Therese Koch (1780-1851) and her
three daughters, are still extant in the possession of Lange's
descendants. Among the many amazing portraits by Lange the following is
my favorite. P. Maurus (Franz Borgius) Stützlinger (b. 6 January 1775
Gmunden, d. 7 August 1842 Salzburg) was elected abbot of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambach_Abbey" target="_blank">Lambach Abbey</a>
in 1812. In 1820 he was deposed owing to the abbey's complete
bankruptcy. Joseph Lange's life-sized portrait of Maurus Stützlinger was
painted in 1815:<br>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Fns8u0JyB-Q/UFoBz0iY69I/AAAAAAAAAds/ccpYTj3Mpww/s1600/Abt+Maurus.JPG" style="margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em"><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Fns8u0JyB-Q/UFoBz0iY69I/AAAAAAAAAds/ccpYTj3Mpww/s400/Abt+Maurus.JPG" border="0" height="400" width="313"></a><br clear="all">
<br>-- <br><div>carlos palombini<br></div><a href="http://www.researcherid.com/rid/F-7345-2011" target="_blank">www.researcherid.com/rid/F-7345-2011</a><br>
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