A Portrait of Chopin

Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin
(watercolor brush by Maria Wodzińska, 1835)
watercolor and ink on bristol board
Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie
(http://pl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plik:Chopin,_by_Wodzinska.JPG&filetimestamp=20100714082648)
no copyright infringement intended

Thee portrait was painted by then-16-year-old Maria Wodzińska (1819-96). The artist and her sitter became engaged the following year but never married each other. The portrait is described in Tad Szulc's book Chopin in Paris as one of the best portraits of Chopin extant--after that by Delacroix -- with the composer looking relaxed, pensive, and at peace.

(wiki)

She made sketches of Chopin's head as he played the piano and talked, then sat him down in an armchair to paint his portrait in watercolors.

(wiki)

In 1835 Chopin went to Carlsbad, where, for the last time in his life, he met with his parents. En route through Saxony on his way back to Paris, he met old friends from Warsaw, the Wodzińskis. He had made the acquaintance of their daughter Maria, now sixteen, in Poland five years earlier, and fell in love with the charming, intelligent, artistically talented young woman. The following year, in September 1836, upon returning to Dresden after having vacationed with the Wodzińskis at Marienbad, Chopin proposed marriage to Maria. She accepted, and her mother Countess Wodzińska approved in principle, but Maria's tender age and Chopin's tenuous health (in the winter of 1835–1836 he had been so ill that word had circulated in Warsaw that he had died) forced an indefinite postponement of the wedding. The engagement remained a secret to the world and never led to the altar.[43] Chopin finally placed the letters from Maria and her mother in a large envelope, on which he wrote the Polish words Moja bieda.

(wiki)

(Chopin)