Cleveland Museum of Art

Head of Beethoven

Emile Antoine Bourdelle

Date

1891

Medium

bronze

Culture

France, 19th century

Department

Modern European Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

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 rises my soul swirls.”

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