A very nice lithographic portrait of the pianist-composer, which he has boldly signed at the bottom right corner. The portrait is by the noted French lithographers Émile Desmaisons and Joseph Lemercier after a photograph by Mayer and Pierson. It was published by Maison Brandus, and though it bears no date, it was first included in the Bibliographie de la France (an annual catalogue listing new publications in France) in 1856. This portrait thus dates to roughly the same time that Herz won First Prize as a piano maker at the Paris Exposition of 1855.

Henri Herz was a virtuoso pianist, composer, and piano manufacturer, Austrian by birth and French by nationality. He was a professor in the Paris Conservatoire for more than thirty years. Among his major works are eight piano concertos, a piano sonata, rondos, nocturnes, waltzes, marches, fantasias, and numerous sets of variations. He later founded the École Spéciale de Piano (“Special School of Piano”) in Paris.