Joseph Willibrord Mähler (10 June 1778 – 20 June 1860) was a German painter. He was born in

Koblenz Koblenz (; Moselle Franconian language, Moselle Franconian: ''Kowelenz''), spelled Coblenz before 1926, is a German city on the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle, a multi-nation tributary. Koblenz was established as a Roman Empire, Roman mili ...

-Ehrenbreitstein, the son of Franz Josef Mähler and Anna Johanna, née Vacano. He first served an apprenticeship in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

with

Anton Graff Anton Graff (18 November 1736 – 22 June 1813) was an eminent Swiss portrait artist. Among his famous subjects were Friedrich Schiller, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Heinrich von Kleist, Frederick the Great, Friederike Sophie Seyler, Johann Go ...

to become a painter and later on, he continued with his studies at the

Academy of Fine Arts Vienna The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (german: link=no, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien) is a public art school in Vienna, Austria. History The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna was founded in 1692 as a private academy modelled on the Accademia di Sa ...

. Mähler then decided to start a civil career, and he became an officer of the Secret Service ''Geheime Kabinettskanzlei'' (secret chancellery) in Vienna, while painting in his spare time. Mähler was introduced to

Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...

by Beethoven's school day friend Stephan von Breuning in the winter 1803/04. He painted his first portrait of Beethoven, which shows three quarters of the composer's body in an

Arcadia Arcadia may refer to: Places Australia * Arcadia, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney * Arcadia, Queensland * Arcadia, Victoria Greece * Arcadia (region), a region in the central Peloponnese * Arcadia (regional unit), a modern administrative un ...

n landscape, holding a lyre-guitar in his hand. (Today, the painting is located in the Beethoven Memorial, the

Pasqualati House The Pasqualati House, notable for being a residence of Ludwig van Beethoven,Barry Cooper (musicologist), Barry Cooper, ''Beethoven'' (Master Musicians, 2008, Oxford University Press)"Beethoven" by Joseph Kerman and Alan Tyson in ''The New Grove Dic ...

in Vienna.) In the 19th century, this illustration – one of just a few depictions of Beethoven when he was young – mainly became famous due to a lithograph by Josef Kriehuber. Around 1815, Mähler produced a series of portraits showing contemporary Viennese composers. As written in the ''Allgemeine Musikzeitung'' (General music journal) in August 1815, "all of them distinguish themselves in a most creditable way through the effectual brush stroke, the descriptive resemblance and the distinctive expression of their soul". A half-length portrait of Beethoven was part of the series. The painter created several versions of this portrait."Portraits of Beethoven "
, California State University, Dominguez Hills He died, aged 82, in Vienna.

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* 1778 births 1860 deaths German male painters 19th-century German painters 19th-century German male artists German portrait painters Artists from Koblenz {{Germany-artist-stub