Ludwig van Beethoven

One of the earliest portraits of Ludwig van Beethoven shows him at the age of 30. At the time he was living in Vienna and was already a renowned pianist and composer. He is wearing contemporary, ordinary clothing. His hair is not powdered and is cut short, which had become the fashion after the French Revolution. His gaze is directed a bit obliquely towards the viewer. In this form, as a modern young artist, the composer received his first pictorial guise. The engraving was used to illustrate his printed compositions and published in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung in 1804.