A Recently Discovered Cello Formerly Owned by Beethoven

In 2008 a cello formerly owned by Ludwig van Beethoven resurfaced (see fig. 3.1). Since then it has been on loan to the Beethoven-Haus. According to Aloys Fuchs in 1846, the instrument was in Vienna after the composer's death, in the possession of P. Wertheimber [sic], a descendant of Samson Wertheimer (1658–1724), who was court factor (purveyor to the royal household, banker, and financial adviser) to Emperor Leopold I. (Leopold I was himself a gifted composer.) Samson Wertheimer held the same post for Leopold's successors, Emperor Joseph I and Charles VI, as well as for the electoral palatinate and the electors of Mainz, Trier, and Saxony; he was, moreover, the chief rabbi of Hungary. A few years ago it became known that Beethoven, in addition to the string quartet instruments exhibited in the Beethoven-Haus since 1890 (and thought to belong together as a set), owned another violin and a second cello. On the basis of two seals carrying the initials “LvB” found on this “new” cello, one can conclude that this instrument was once part of the original string quartet set presented to Beethoven around 1800 by Prince Lichnowsky, as a gift in recognition of his first six string quartets, his op. 18. The seal on the button is the large seal that the composer frequently used; the one on the rib below the endpin is his less frequent small seal (see figs. 3.2 and 3.3).

The other two instruments that formed part of this original set (one of the violins and the viola at the Beethoven-Haus) differ somewhat from them in that the large seal is located at the upper end of the back plate, just below the foot of the neck. In addition, both have the initial “B” incised in the back plate, a mark that our instrument lacks—perhaps having been obliterated in the course of a later repair. Another violin, also originally part of this set, was presented to the Beethoven-Haus by Gerda Taussig for a token purchase price. This violin was presumably built by the Salzburg violin maker Johann Joseph Schorn around 1720. It, too, exhibits the large seal as well as the incised initial on the back plate.