Leopold Mozart and His Children Maria Anna and Wolfgang Giving a Concert in Paris
Jean-Baptiste Joseph Delafosse French
missing margins, foldings 355 mm x 200 mm
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.
One of the most famous of all musical portraits.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/679333
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Carrogis_Carmontelle
https://www.sothebys.com/en/search-results.html?query=CARMONTELLE%20mozart
https://mmc.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/entities/object/portraits-mozart-1763-1764-carmontelle-delafosse/