(Photo credit: Schrader)

More than 200 gold statuettes of Mozart have disappeared from an exhibit at the composer’s former home.

On July 15, The Mozarteum Foundation unveiled 320 statuettes of Mozart and his dog, as part of the composer’s 270th birthday celebration. Within two weeks, more than 80 of the polymer figures designed by German conceptual artist Ottmar Hörl had gone missing. Now, the final count of missing Mozarts is 210.

While the organizers put aside some spare statuettes in case of theft, there were too few to compensate for the actual losses. Hörl intended to sell the statues for about 100 euros once the exhibition was over.

“The worst thing for an artist is when his work dissolves,” Hörl told the German news agency dpa. He said he did not believe visitors stole the works but rather that it was an “organized theft.” “That’s just the nature of public space. That means when you work as an artist in a public space, you mustn’t complain about what is happening there,” Hörl continued. “It ranges from destruction to theft. That’s just how it is.”

The theft of the artist’s work is nothing new. At an installation in Bayreuth, a complete array of statues of Richard Wagner was stolen within 10 days.

The Mozarteum Foundation’s exhibition of statuettes is scheduled to remain on display until August 30.

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