Chopin Statue

The Chopin Statue is a large bronze statue of Frederic Chopin that now stands in the upper part of Warsaw’s Royal Baths Park aka Lazienki Park. It was designed in 1907 by Wacław Szymanowski for its planned erection on the centenary of Chopin’s birth in 1810 but its execution was delayed by controversy about the design, then by the outbreak of World War I. The statue was finally cast and erected in 1926. The statue was blown up on May 31, 1940, during World War II, and was the first monument destroyed by the occupying Germans in Warsaw. Professor Oskar Sosnowski designed the pedestal and basin, which are made of red Wąchock sandstone. The original mould for the statue, which had survived the war, made it possible to cast a replica, which was placed at the original site in 1958. Since 1959, free piano recitals of Chopin’s compositions have been performed at the statue’s base on summer Sunday. The stylized willow over Chopin’s seated figure echoes a pianist’s hand and fingers, and the Polish eagle’s head on the right end.