Refurbished Chopin museum reopens in Warsaw with new items

A museum to Polish pianist and composer Frederic Chopin reopens in Warsaw this week after months of renovations to improve presentation of the exhibits.

The museum, which houses Chopin's last piano, a Pleyel, and manuscripts of his music, will also display new items including letters he wrote to his companion, the writer George Sand, and a satirical drawing she made of him, as well as an oil portrait of Chopin painted by his friend Teofil Kwiatkowski.

The focus of the renewed exhibition is on the original manuscripts, which take the place of previous facsimiles, and on recreating the mood and style of the times they belong to, museum officials said on Thursday.

A large part of the renovation was creating the right technical air and light conditions for exhibiting original, 19th century writings and objects.

Popular among Poles and foreign tourists, the museum to Poland's greatest 19th-century musician closed in the fall of 2022 for the renovation and rearrangement works.

Space has also been made for more items that were owned or linked to the Romantic-era composer, who spent half of his life in Paris, museum officials said.

Chopin was born in 1810 in Zelazowa Wola near Warsaw to a Polish mother and a French father. Seeking to develop his talent, he went to Vienna in 1830 and then to Paris, where he settled until his death in 1849.

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