Who is on the Austrian €1 coin?

When the Austrian currency changed to the euro they chose to produce a series of coins illustrating flowers, architecture and famous people from its history. The designs were chosen by a national panel and public opinion poll. All designs are by the hand of Josef Kaiser and they include the 12 stars of the EU and the year of imprint. The coins have a unique design for each denomination, with a common theme for each of the three series of coins.

The two major coins feature famous Austrians: The €2 coin shows the portrait of the radical pacifist Bertha von Suttner, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905 and the €1 coin shows the portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the famous Austrian composer, and his signature.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, he showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, but grew restless and traveled in search of a better position. He composed more than 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, and his influence is profound on subsequent Western art music.