In the Louvre in Paris, visitors can admire a portrait of Frédéric Chopin by one of the most important representatives of French Romanticism and a close friend of the Polish composer, Eugène Delacroix. Painted around 1838, the canvas, measuring just 38 x 46 cm, is a fragment of a larger composition that depicted Chopin in the company of his beloved George Sand. The unfinished painting remained with Delacroix until the end of his life. The circumstances and date of its creation, the compositional arrangement of the double portrait and its further fate are still shrouded in mystery.

Division of the painting

After Delacroix's death, the work passed into the possession of the Duttileux family. In the second half of the 19th century, two sections of the work were cut out of the painting, presumably in order to sell it more profitably. One, depicting a portrait of Chopin, from the erstwhile collection of the pianist Antoine François Marmontel, is displayed in the Louvre, while the other, with an image of George Sand, can be seen in the Ordrupgaard Museum in Copenhagen.

Reconstruction of the original composition

The compositional arrangement of the original, never-completed canvas remains the subject of speculation: the Louvre collection contains a horizontal sketch for the painting by Delacroix, while a sketch of the composition made by Adolphe Moreau in 1873 suggests that the original dimensions were close to square. Chopin was originally intended to be situated on the right-hand side by the piano, with George Sand listening to him play on the left. The composition of the painting, a variation on the images popular in the nineteenth century of women playing at the piano surrounded by listening men, which can be interpreted in the context of the discourse on the role of the piano as a symbol of a woman's place in the society of the time, is said not to have met with Chopin's approval. As a result, the painting was never completed.

Portrait of Chopin

Interestingly, the frame with Chopin's portrait met with lively public interest in the 19th century, including at the 1878 World Exhibition and a retrospective show of Delacroix's work at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1885. In 1907, it was purchased for the Louvre collection. It is now regarded as the best-known painted portrait of the Polish composer.