Head of Beethoven
Medium
bronze
Dimensions
59.2 × 42 × 52.1 cm
Classification
Sculpture
Department
Modern European Painting and Sculpture
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Carrie Moss Halle in memory of Salmon Portland Halle
Accession Number
1960.82
Tags
About this artwork
A pioneer of modern sculpture, Antoine Bourdelle studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and worked as an assistant to Augustin Rodin, who greatly admired the younger artist’s work. In 1888 Bourdelle produced the first of a series of sculptural portraits of Ludwig van Beethoven, in which the artist orchestrated powerful billowing shapes to convey the creative spirit or genius of the composer. The artist inscribed a quote from Beethoven in the lower left: “My domain is the air; when the wind...