Under its conductor Willem Mengelberg, the orchestra of Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam’s internationally famous concert hall, rose to international fame. Mengelberg was the orchestra’s resident conductor for more than half a century. Amsterdam was very proud of him. In 1926 the maestro posed in New York for Alexander Archipenko, an American of Russian origin. Archipenko had become famous in the 1920s for his portraits of celebrities which he produced in no time. This bronze head shows Mengelberg conducting Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. On the back you can read that he posed for a total of only one and a quarter hours.