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I was browsing the internet for "Chopin death mask" when I came across this photo that I have never seen before:



and with some minor adjustments to bring it out a bit more:




It is clearly not the official Bisson photo, as his face appears positioned slightly differently, and his eyes look to be closed. It seems to me like this photo was snapped, perhaps accidentally, by Bisson when they met for his picture in 1848.

There's no doubt this is Chopin. The hair and clothes are exactly the same as in the Bisson official photograph, and his facial features are no doubt his. Why have I, and a lot of you I suspect, never seen this picture before? Why is it unknown?

Why'd you use the spoiler thing for the photos?

Nice find.

Meh, I made it regular. Haha

I don't think it was possible in those days to 'accidentally' take a photograph

You're right. I forgot about the insanely slow shutter speed. This photo is puzzling me. It doesn't look posed, yet pictures back then had to be posed.

...

Actually, camera shutters weren't invented until the 1870s.

W

I mean... insanely long exposure time. Haha

I see that the original photo (the unedited one) goes back to a blog by our Elene, so hopefully she will see this thread.

it looks like a "daguerreotype"

Which was invented in 1839 - so that was the only technology available in the 1840s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_photography

Polyphonist,

I did a quick search of Chopin images and came up with quite a few different croppings of what appears to be the same image, and the photo you're showing can be explained as the most extreme crop of all, of the same image. The more you crop into the image, the softer and less sharp the image will be. There are other possible explanations too--someone attempted to make a copy of the original image and didn't properly focus the copy camera? Could be. At any rate, I don't believe it is a different image from the same shoot, or a new, heretofore unknown image.

Tomasino

I think you're talking to JoelW (the OP), not me. He was the one who found the image.

Sorry but I don't think this explains it at all. There is a CLEAR difference between these two photos.

The head seems to be slightly angled differently and look at the mouth. It's a dead giveaway.

I'd say it's just a photoshopped version of the same shot. There are too many similarities and all the differences can be easily explained by editing the photo.

There are a few reasons why I feel this isn't the case:

1) To photoshop the actual angle of Chopin's face would be a very unusual and I assume difficult edit.

2) What is the motive for photoshopping such a photo in that way?

3) Look at the photo's top and bottom edges. See the wear? This isn't just an online picture, this is an actually physical photograph.

Explanation

I see. Who is Mary-Ros Douglas? I can't find anything about her.

Fred was already pretty sick by the time the subject photo was taken - you can clearly see the ravages of the disease - he was not long for this world, poor guy. Anyway, my favorite continues to be his portrait by his friend Delacroix...

She is a PW member. (Elene is a PW member too.)