Joseph Karl Stieler artwork - Ludwig van Beethoven - 1820 - The only portrait Beethoven posed for in his lifetime.
Between February and April 1820, Joseph Karl Stieler, court artist to the Bavarian kings, created what remains the most famous portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven. For two centuries, it has perpetuated the popular image of the composer – his brooding demeanour and his reputation as a lover, and force, of nature. Illuminated in a forest setting, Beethoven looks into the distance as he awaits inspiration for his Missa Solemnis, the score clasped in his left hand. While the painting, its reception and its influence on later artists are currently the subject of a bicentenary exhibition at the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, less well known is its at times turbulent history as a material artefact – the way in which it has become something like a holy relic for those who have owned it, and its entanglement in the story of Nazi appropriation of art and aesthetics during the Third Reich. Stieler claimed that he was the only painter for whom the notoriously edgy Beethoven had agreed to pose. He rarely, if ever, agreed to such sittings, considering them a kind of penance. On this occasion he agreed, mainly to honour the wish of his patrons and ‘best friends in the world’, Franz and Antonie Brentano, that Stieler paint him. (Antonie has been suggested by some musicologists as the most likely intended recipient for the composer’s impassioned, and undelivered, ‘Immortal Beloved’ letter.) Beethoven, though, was unable to stay still past the four sittings and Stieler was left to paint the hands from memory - Rob Weinberg
Size: 2661px × 3200px
Photo credit: © steeve-x-art / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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