Chopin & George Sand
The pianist and the writer who dressed as a man
The composer Frédéric Chopin and the novelist George Sand — who scandalized society by dressing as a man and smoking in public — nine years of an intense, creative love that ended shortly before Chopin's death.
01Why it matters
It joins two titans of Romanticism; the winter in Mallorca produced some of Chopin's preludes.
02The conflict
Chopin's tuberculosis and Sand's rebellious independence.
03The iconic moment
The freezing winter at the Valldemossa Charterhouse in Mallorca.
04What survived
Chopin's Preludes; the Valldemossa Charterhouse, now a museum.
05Where to travel
06Frequently asked questions
Why is the story of Chopin & George Sand famous?
It joins two titans of Romanticism; the winter in Mallorca produced some of Chopin's preludes.
How does the story of Chopin & George Sand end?
The freezing winter at the Valldemossa Charterhouse in Mallorca. Chopin's Preludes; the Valldemossa Charterhouse, now a museum.
Where can you visit the story of Chopin & George Sand?
You can visit Valldemossa Charterhouse, in Mallorca. Where they spent the winter of 1838.
Related loves
Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald
The couple who embodied the Jazz Age
F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda, the glamorous, self-destructive marriage that defined the Roaring Twenties; between alcohol, creative jealousy and Zelda's mental illness, their love burned out as fast as it shone.
Read the story
Pablo Neruda & Matilde Urrutia
A hundred sonnets for a secret lover
The secret lover who became wife, nurse and guardian of the Nobel laureate's legacy, and the muse of "100 Love Sonnets" and "The Captain's Verses."
Read the story
Rodin & Camille Claudel
Two sculptors, a love that destroyed her
The sculptor Camille Claudel, Auguste Rodin's pupil, model and lover, brilliant in her own right; abandoned by him, she was committed by her family to an asylum for the last 30 years of her life.
Read the story