Images of Chopin

Abstract Chopin’s funeral at the Madeleine, paid for by Jane Stirling, was delayed until 30 October, while special permission was sought for women to sing in Mozart’s Requiem, in accordance with Chopin’s last wishes. After it the body was taken to the Pere Lachaise cemetery, with Prince Czartoryski as Chief Mourner. But well before the funeral the Chopin cult had begun. The day following his death Kwiatkowski made several sketches of Chopin’s face, the sources for innumerable later replicas. Clesinger also made a death mask and worked several plaster casts from two negatives, one of them commissioned by Jane Stirling. He was further charged by a committee chaired by Delacroix with the task of sculpting the monument that would be unveiled at a special ceremony at Pere Lachaise a year later.