Lock of Mozart’s hair set to reach £12,000 at auction

Sotheby’s in London is to auction a lock of fair hair belonging to composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart this Thursday. The curl, dating from 1791, is enclosed in a gilt locket and was passed from Mozart’s widow Constanze to German conductor Karl Anschutz, before being given to English composer Arthur Sommervell. The piece has been valued at between £10,000 and £12,000.

In former times locks of hair were frequently taken as keepsakes from the bodies of the recently deceased. A lock of Ludwig van Beethoven's hair and a printed invitation to the composer’s funeral in 1827 are also being sold in the same Sotheby’s lot tomorrow with an estimate of £2,000.

In 2002, a lock of Mozart's hair was sold for £38,240 by Sotheby’s - double the pre-sale estimate, while in November 2014 a rare portrait miniature of the composer at the age of 21 was sold by the auction house for £218,500.

Photo: Sotheby's

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