The small tombstone of Frédéric Chopin, one of the favourite destinations of tourists at Père-Lachaise cemetery, depicts a grief-stricken female figure - the muse of lyric poetry Euterpe bent over a broken lyre. On the pedestal is a portrait medallion of the deceased with her image in profile. The dedication 'A Fred. Chopin ses amis' identifies the composer's circle of friends as the founders of the tombstone. It was erected a year after Chopin's death, and unveiled on 17 October 1850.

. The Polish writer Ferdynand Hoesick (1867-1941) emphatically described the inspired process of the sculptor's creation of the tombstone and the lyrical effect it evokes, close to Chopin's music: "The only feeling one would experience on such a night, being supported by the iron rails of this monument, would be, at most, that of listening to some dramatic Chopin Nocturne, or a poignant finale from his sonata with a funeral march". Clésinger was a close acquaintance of Chopin (reluctant, however, to play him), the husband of Solange Dudevant, the daughter of George Sand, with whom Chopin was associated.

The artist twice removed Chopin's plaster death mask and made a cast of his hand. The design for the monument was to be created very quickly (according to an anonymous journalist from L'Artiste, the day after Chopin's death!) and won the favour of a social committee headed by its chairman, the great painter and friend of Chopin, Eugène Delacroix, who wrote in his 'Diary': "It seemed to me that I would do this way too". It was unveiled on the first anniversary of the composer's death, and during the ceremony an urn with soil brought from Poland was also placed there. Among the prevailing praise from both the French and the Poles, however, there was virulent criticism from the poet Cyprian Kamil Norwid (1821-1883), who wrote of the "shamefully carved monument, pretending to be a woman who cries with a lyre in her hand!".

The composer's heart was laid to rest in the Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw. The Paris monument was damaged in 1871 during the Paris Commune. It was restored with funds from the Polish embassy in 1976, then thoroughly restored with French funds in 1999; another restoration took place in 2017 and was carried out by Polish conservators. A copy of the sculpture is in the Polish embassy in Paris.