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# Johann Tischbein's Portrait of Goethe and the Unusual Depiction of the Legs
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/iogann-tishbein-izvesten-vo-mnogom-blagodaria-tomu-chto-pisal-portrety-svoego-priiatelia-ioaganna-volfganga-giote/
- Published: 2024-11-01T08:02:39.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:35:01.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Art, Museums, People

Johann Tischbein is known largely for having painted portraits of his friend Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Before us is one of the most famous portraits of Goethe, by Tischbein himself.

The thinker, in the pose of an ancient Roman, has settled on a ruined Egyptian obelisk beneath an ivory-coloured plaid, reminiscent of the sleeveless cloaks popular in those years, known as the alma viva and the talma.

A question about the legs. Look closely and it may seem that in this portrait Goethe has two left legs. But if you do not look closely and instead try to picture a living man: look, such legs do not exist, they seem severed from the body by a high road. Especially strange is the leg beneath the plaid, which appears considerably longer than the other, somehow disproportionate, immeasurably longer than anatomy allows.

Art historians have no common view as to why this happened. The audio guide at the Frankfurt museum explains the oddity of the two left legs, though not their anatomical rendering, by saying that the portrait was finished by the artist's pupil, and that his blunder for some reason went unnoticed.