Portrait of Ignaz Moscheles

Ignaz Moschelès (1794-1870) was a German-Bohemian conductor, composer, and virtuoso pianist, who spent a large part of his career, from 1821 until 1846, in London. There he introduced audiences to the novelty of pianoforte concerts without an orchestra in 1837. That same year Lehmann portrayed Moschelès and his wife, Charlotte Embden (1990.18:2), a first cousin of the artist on his mother's side. While Moschelès was raised in the Jewish quarter of Prague and flourished for eight years among the cultural milieu of Vienna's prominent Jewish families, he shed connections to his faith when arriving in London, and all of his and Charlotte's children were baptized as Christians.
In the summer of 1837, Henri Lehmann and his brother Rodolphe traveled to Hamburg and Munich; a cholera outbreak derailed their planned trip to Rome. Lehmann's drawn portraits of Ignaz and Charlotte Moschelès were executed in August, most likely in Hamburg. (The portrait is mentioned in Lehmann's record book, or livre raisonné, fol. 6). The artist's younger brother Rudolf Lehmann would produce a print of Moschelès in 1850 when the musician was four years into his post as head of the piano department at Leipzig Conservatory.
Aubrun, Marie-Madeleine., and Lehmann, Henri. "Henri Lehmann : 1814-1882 : Catalogue Raisonné De L'œuvre / Marie-Madeleine Aubrun." France: Association Les Amis De Henri Lehmann, 1984, D.1073.