Ludwig van Beethoven, Totenmaske - Gipsabguss der von Josef Danhauser 1827 angefertigten Maske, Fotografie von Karl Steinle, Bonn, um 1920

After a long disease, Ludwig van Beethoven died in the afternoon of March 26, in 1827 in his apartment at the "Schwarzspanierhaus" ("House of the Black-robed Spaniards") in Vienna. As soon as the young artist Josef Danhauser had known about the death of the composer he admired so much, he immediately contacted Beethoven's friend Stephan von Breuning and asked him for his allowance to create Beethoven's death mask. Breuning agreed and Danhauser was allowed to do the molding in Beethoven's apartment. According to today's state of knowledge, Josef Danhauser and his brother Carl most probably already went to the "Schwarzspanierhaus" early in the morning, just a few hours after Beethoven's death, to create the death mask there. During this procedure, a negative of Beethoven's face was created, which today does not exist anymore. Later, Danhauser casted this negative with plaster and obtained a positive that way, which today is called the "death mask".(S.B.)