Young Beethoven

This work is the bronze casting of a plaster now in the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Milan (Inv. 1259) made for Benedetto Junck and shown at Brera in 1874. A plaster version of this subject is known to have been in the Troubetzkoy family collection, and an autograph replica is in a private collection in Emilia. This bust of the young musician, with its highly original and dynamic composition – which also includes the arm and right hand (though apparently of secondary importance, this feature is actually key to the work) – is a fine example of the level of quality that Grandi’s sculpture had achieved by this date.