Leopold Mozart and His Children Maria Anna and Wolfgang Giving a Concert in Paris

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Jean-Baptiste Joseph Delafosse|Louis de Carmontelle|Johann Georg Leopold Mozart|Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia (Nannerl) Mozart

1764 · Etching and engraving · Drawings and Prints

Recognizing the exceptional musical gifts of his children Nannerl (born 1751) and Wolfgang Amadé (born 1756), the Salzburg court violinist, composer, and teacher Leopold Mozart took them on a three-year tour through Europe, which brought them to Paris between 1763 and April 1764. It was on this occasion that the present engraving was published (after a watercolor today at the Musée Condé, Chantilly). One of the most celebrated works on paper by the portraitist Carmontelle, it exists in several later, though autograph, versions attesting to its early popularity as a work of art—and to that of the child prodigies who commanded Europe’s musical stage. The inscription, though mentioning his father and his sister before the younger Wolfgang Amadeus, who is seated behind a harpsichord, refers to the seven year old as a composer.

Artist

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Jean-Baptiste Joseph Delafosse|Louis de Carmontelle|Johann Georg Leopold Mozart|Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia (Nannerl) Mozart

Date

1764

Medium

Etching and engraving

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1917