Name: Mozart Artist: Johann Georg Edinger Year, Place: 1790, Munich Medium: Oils Owner: Gemaelde Gallery, Berlin Comments: The Edlinger portrait has caused lively discussion among scholars worldwide. The press release in early 2005 caused an international sensation, with newspapers picking up the story of a "worn down and chubby man" both offending and compelling audiences. Using biometrics, a digital science of identification being used in museums to identify portraiture, Wolfgang Seiler (a descendant of the artist Edlinger) declared the painting authentic. An archivist in Munich refuted the claim, ascribing the portrait to a local merchant named Stiener and claimed the face was restored in 2004 to resemble the authenticated Bologna Mozart painting. Recently, new controversy now surrounds the archivists claims, in conjunction with a second biometric test reaching equally spectacular results as the first. Surely this portrait causes more controversy than any opera Mozart ever wrote.
