Bourdelle was born in 1861 in Montauban near the city of Toulouse where, at the age of fifteen, he was given a grant by his hometown to study at their école des beaux-arts. At the age of eighteen he became fascinated with Beethoven—an interest that would continue for the rest of his life. Peter Murray discusses this theme in Bourdelle’s work, writing: “In 1888 he embarked upon his first sculptures of Beethoven; a theme which was to fascinate and tantalise him for the rest of his life resulting in many drawings, sculptures and proposals for monuments. When he was eighteen Bourdelle saw an engraving of Beethoven and was struck by what he considered to be a visual resemblance with himself. Upon hearing his music he identified closely with the great composer, recognizing the same spiritual power as in his own sculpture, stating that he 'heard' sculptures in Beethoven’s music… Bourdelle felt compelled to create many images based upon the head of Beethoven… employing a visual language ranging from carefully modelled to frenzied statements where the shapes and masses appear to burst forth from the inner core of the sculpture” (Bourdelle. Pioneer of the Future (exhibition catalogue), Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, pp. 15-17).

Beethoven reappeared at intervals throughout Bourdelle’s career. After his initial studies on the topic in the late 1880s and early 1890s, Bourdelle again focused on this subject throughout the first decade of the twentieth century, at which time the present work was created. Peter Cannon-Brookes described this particular series of depictions of the famous composer: “Bourdelle turned again to the theme of Beethoven and the carefully modelled surfaces of his 1888-91 compositions gave way to a much more spontaneous treatment which both echoes the frenzy of the heads in the Montauban monument and prefigures many of the qualities developed in the Modern movement… Bourdelle was seeking to resynthesize forms in accordance with a new, structural displine and to express with greater force the inner ideas, untrammeled by the restraints imposted by mimesis. In recreating the image of Beethoven, Bourdelle achieved, in 1901, the breakthrough which was to lead to Cubism and abstract art" (Peter Cannon-Brookes, op. cit., pp. 33-35).

There are seven known bronze casts of this work and one granite version, which is in the collection of the Musée Bourdelle, Paris.