Ludwig van Beethoven - Lithographie von Theodor Neu nach einer Zeichnung von August von Kloeber aus dem Jahr 1822, gedruckt von L. Zöllner in Berlin, erschienen im Kommissionsverlag von Trautwein, Berlin, um 1850

In contrast to many other very idealizing and declamatory depictions of Beethoven, the drawing by August von Kloeber, created in the summer of 1818 in Mödling, conveys a rather direct and natural impression of Beethoven's physical appearance. The painter later remembered that Beethoven himself also thought that the study was very much drawn from life and that especially his hair style was very well painted on that drawing.

August von Kloeber created two more portraits of Beethoven after that. One of it was an oil painting, which today is lost. It showed Beethoven together with his nephew out in the nature. A chalk drawing, which was created several years after the pencil drawing and which already idealizes Beethoven's depiction more, had been preserved. (Two more versions of this depiction had exist, but neither had they been preserved.)

In the 1840s, the Berlin lithographers Theodor Neu and Carl Fischer created several lithographs after this chalk drawing - while being supervised by the painter, as is explicitly said in the inscription of some prints. Thanks to the broad distribution of this lithographs, which had been copied by numerous artists in the 19th century, this portrait of Beethoven became especially popular. Kloeber's pencil drawing however, had not attracted a lot of attention until the 20th century.(S.B.)