{"id":582653,"date":"2026-08-12T18:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T18:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/582653\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T18:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T18:18:09","slug":"mini-mozart-heist-blights-anniversary-tribute-as-thieves-make-off-with-statuettes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/582653\/","title":{"rendered":"Mini-Mozart heist blights anniversary tribute as thieves make off with statuettes"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 200 gold statuettes of Austria\u2019s most famous composer <\/a>disappeared from his hometown of Salzburg, officials said Wednesday, leaving a tribute to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart<\/a> on his 270th birthday considerably less crowded.<\/p>\n

The Mozarteum Foundation on July 15 unveiled 320 statuettes, less than 20 inches high, showing Mozart with his dog. They were designed by German conceptual artist Ottmar H\u00f6rl.<\/p>\n

Within two weeks, more than 80 of the polymer figures had disappeared. By Wednesday, a total of 210 were missing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe worst thing for an artist is when his work dissolves,\u201d H\u00f6rl told the German news agency dpa. He said he did not believe visitors stole the works but rather that it was an \u201corganized theft.\u201d<\/p>\n

H\u00f6rl intended to sell the statues for about 100 euros ($114) once the exhibition was over, meaning whoever ran away with 210 mini-Mozarts has not become an overnight millionaire.<\/p>\n

The mini-Mozarts populated not only the garden of the composer\u2019s former house, but also his living quarters as well as several pavilions.<\/p>\n

While the organizers put aside some spare statuettes in case of theft, there were too few to compensate for the actual losses. And in a further stroke of bad luck, the manufacturer of the statues was away on holidays, so there was no quick fix.<\/p>\n

The exhibition of statuettes, now more widely spaced, is scheduled to remain on display until Aug. 30.<\/p>\n

For H\u00f6rl, who is known from his sculptures made from polymer, the theft of his artworks is nothing new. At an installation in Bayreuth, Germany, a complete array of statues of Richard Wagner was stolen within 10 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just the nature of public space. That means when you work as an artist in a public space, you mustn\u2019t complain about what is happening there,\u201d H\u00f6rl said. \u201cIt ranges from destruction to theft. That\u2019s just how it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mozart was born on Jan. 27, 1756, in Salzburg, where the Mozarteum Foundation offers concerts, maintains Mozart museums and supports research on him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to do a monument of Mozart. There are already enough of these. But I wanted to show his human side, that he was a normal human being despite his genius,\u201d H\u00f6rl told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

To give the statues a human touch, H\u00f6rl depicted the composer with his favorite dog, Pimperl. Mozart and his family were known to take long walks with their dogs in the Mirabell Garden, next to where they lived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 200 gold statuettes of Austria\u2019s most famous composer disappeared from his hometown of Salzburg, officials said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[437,434,435,436,438,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-582653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}