Frédéric François Chopin;
French pronunciation: 22 February or 1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849), born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era, who wrote primarily for the solo piano. He gained and has maintained renown worldwide as one of the leading musicians of his era, whose "poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation.
After he died at the age of 39 from a still debated illness likely related to tuberculosis on October 17, 1849 in Paris, sculptor Auguste Clésinger was rushed to his bed. There he made a cast of the composer's left hand, and a death mask. According to Victor Lederer's book on Chopin, Chopin's hands were "extraordinarily beautiful," but Lederer calls the death mask a "ghastly artifact" showing "a bloated face, its mouth twisted by the effort to breathe, beneath a bald head." Apparently this horrid thing was so shocking to Chopin's sister that Clésinger remade it to be a prettier version of the deceased, to fit with his place as an icon of Romanticism.
Chopin face mask (hand cast also available separately)
This listing is for a resin cast. It is also available in plaster.