Boffins spend 10 years painstakingly recreating Mozart's face using shape of his skull – Daily Star
At Reach and across our entities we and our partners use information collected through cookies and other identifiers from your device to improve experience on our site, analyse how it is used and to show personalised advertising. You can opt out of the sale or sharing of your data, at any time clicking the "Do Not Sell or Share my Data" button at the bottom of the webpage. Please note that your preferences are browser specific. Use of our website and any of our services represents your acceptance of the use of cookies and consent to the practices described in our Privacy Notice and Cookie Notice.
Boffins have recreated Mozart’s face and it could be the closest likeness we have ever seen
The 18th century titan of music who continues to be hailed as one of music’s all-time greats and geniuses. But we don’t really know what he looked like, with most of the portraits of the man who composed The Marriage of Figaro, The Magic Flute and hundreds of recognisable piano works painted after his death in 1791 at the age of 35.
Now, however, boffins have used a skull that has been attributed to Mozart to rebuild his likeness. The project has taken over a decade.
“Our team has been working for over a decade on facial approximations, occasionally helping police forensic teams and constantly reconstructing historical figures,” said facial reconstructions expert Cicero Moraes, who led the study. “During previous studies, we discovered by chance that there was a skull attributed to Mozart.”
He said: “There were images of the skull with spatial references so it was possible to reconstruct it. 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.”
To begin with, the skull was rebuilt virtually. Moraes explained: “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.”
Moraes added: “To complement the data, we also used the anatomical deformation technique, adjusting the head of a virtual donor to match the parameters of the skull attributed to Mozart. In this way a compatible face would be generated.
“After crossing all the data, we had a basic bust, which was finished with the placement of hair and clothing according to references from the time.”
There are some contemporary examples that attempted to get close to Mozart’s likeness. Historians have often cited a sketch by Dora Stock in 1789 and an unfinished portrait by Joseph Lange. THis portrait was called “by far the best likeness of him” by Mozart’s wife Constanze.
As for the skull, it was recovered by a gravedigger around 10 years after Mozart's death. The composer was buried in an unmarked grave in Vienna.
It is not clear if it Mozart’s actual skull or not.
“What we do know is that the skull has characteristics compatible with the portraits of him in life,” Moraes said, but added “this is not proof”.
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.
