Beethovens Kopf auf dem Totenbett im Profil - Ölstudie von Josef Danhauser, Wien, 1827

Josef Danhauser painted a total of three portraits of Beethoven after his death. The reason for this very pronounced interest in representing the composer - apart from professionally oriented motives - lay in all probability in the enthusiasm the young artist felt for Beethoven's music. Danhauser was himself a very talented musician, who played an active musical role in the masses at San Marco during his five-month stay in Venice in 1826.

Even if the often repeated supposition that Danhauser belonged to the circle of people around Beethoven or even knew him personally is not substantiated in any nineteenth-century sources, notes made by the young artist show how music generally fascinated him. This explains the interest he felt in painting the composer, which becomes particularly clear in the studies of Beethoven's head done in oils.(S.B.)