Ludwig van Beethoven, mit Notenzeile der 5. Sinfonie - Gemälde von Lazar Binenbaum, Reproduktion, um 1925

In 1812 Beethoven's friends, the Vienna piano manufacturers Nannette and Andreas Streicher (a childhood friend of German poet Schiller) opened a piano salon which they also used as a concert hall. They intended to decorate the room with busts of famous musicians. For this purpose sculptor Franz Klein was ordered to create a naturalistic Beethoven bust. (In 1805 Klein had produced busts for purely medical purposes for physician Franz Joseph Gall.) First, the sculptor created a gypsum mask of the composer's face. According to the Streicher family the first try went awry as Beethoven feared to suffocate under the gypsum layer on his face. The second try then succeeded. Using the mask, Franz Klein later modelled Beethoven's bust. However, he had to add the composer's eyes and his hair as these parts were covered during production of the mask. The clothing was also added by the sculptor. Klein's original bust was owned by the Streicher family until the early 20th century. (Later, it became part of the collection of the Vienna Historical Museum.) In 1890, Klein's original was used to make a cast for the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, which itself served as a model for many other casts and mouldings.(S.B.)