Previously unknown Chopin portrait
The Valais physicist Alain Kohler and the journalist M. Gilles Bencimon from Radio France Internationale present a previously unknown presumed portrait of Frédéric Chopin.
Kohler discovered the portrait by chance in a private house where he was in conversation with a music lover. The renowned Chopin expert, who is very familiar with Chopin's iconography, persuaded the owner of the photograph to have the previously unknown portrait examined in detail. Together with Gilles Bencimon, he traced its origins.
According to Kohler, meticulous examinations of the picture leave little doubt that it is an authentic photograph of Chopin from 1847. It shows the composer shortly after his separation from George Sand, already clearly marked by a serious illness.
However, one fly in the ointment remains: the photograph is a photographic copy of the original daguerreotype, similar to two previously known but lost portraits. Despite intensive efforts, Kohler and Bencimon have not been able to find out more about the fate of the originals.
