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A book of engravings of Kupecky's paintings published in Nuremberg in 1745, contains an engraved copy of this picture, made by Bernhard Vogel in 1736. This mezzotint engraving identifies the represented person as: R. Donauer, Pict. Moscov. Thus the painting depicts the painter Gottfried Donauer or Danhauer who, according to the contemporary writer von Hagedorn, was of Swabian origin and a clockmaker like his father. He went to Italy to study music and painting with Bombelli. Later he moved to Russia where he died in 1737 in St. Petersburg. Kupecky who according to his biographer Füssli, while returning from Rome, became acquainted in Venice with the portrait painter Sebastiano Bombelli, may have met Donauer in Venice. Thus the picture probably was made at the beginning of Kupecky's career, in Italy and then taken by him to Vienna and to Nuremberg. However, some copies of Vogel's engraving call the picture The Allegory of Hearing. Hence it is possible, that the painting, which for a time was attributed also to Ádám Mányoki, belonged to a series representing The Five Senses. (a similar pictorial approach in the series Five Senses by Johann Heinrich Schönfeld once in Salzburg). As we do not know any authentic portrait of Donauer, and Kupecky's authentic Italian works have hardly survived, the identification and dating must remain open to question.
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