Got a Wall Street Bonus? Blow It on Beethoven’s Skull

Certainly, he hasn’t been using it lately. Collected when the composer’s composer succumbed to liver failure in 1827 at the age of 57 (let that be a lesson to you drinkers out there), Ludwig van Beethoven’s skull has traveled a long way from his Viennese deathbed to the hands of California businessman Paul Kaufmann, who is now auctioning off the one-of-a-kind musical momento mori.

 

 

A family heirloom of sorts, the skull was first exhumed by Kaufmann’s great-great uncle, one of a group of physicians who studied Beethoven’s remains in 1863 for scientific study inspired by the contemporary interest in phrenology. While Kaufman hopes to net around $100,000 for the relic, Sotheby’s auction house has declined to sell it, meaning the bones that once held the mind that created “Symphony No. 9 in D Minor” are being offered to the public via email (interested parties should contact skullbet@yahoo.com). While Kaufman and musical scholars hope the skull winds up in a respectable institution (like Galileo’s middle finger or John Wilkes Booth’s spine) re-interred with the rest of the maestro, it would look just lovely atop a grand piano a la Shroeder.

 

“For Sale: Beethoven’s Skull” [Huffington Post]