OURCHOPIN FORUM

[chopin]

Does anyone have any information about Chopin's eye color? I asked because one of the visitors disagreed with the answers posted in the Questions section.



Autrey:

Surprisingly, this is a difficult question to answer. For some reasons there seems to be a lot of controversy over the details of his physical appearance. Some say that his eyes were dark brown, almost black. Biographer George Marek believes this to be true. However, others believe that his eyes were very light --- blue or blue green, as biographer Tad Szulc believes. Others still believe that his eyes were hazel. Although I've never read a work by any Chopin biographer who asserts this point of view, many contemporary accounts state that his eyes were hazel, including the accounts of several childhood friends. Many of the portraits of Chopin show that his eyes are a light brown/hazel color. I've also seen portraits that show Chopin's eyes a dark grey. Most of the portraits that show his eyes as dark brown are copies of lost originals, which lead me to believe that dark brown was not his eye color. I believe the contemporary accounts over the biographers --- his eyes! were hazel

Teresa:

Chopin's eyes were blue grey, as stated in the passport he obtained in 1837 to go to England with Pleyel.

Elene:

BLUE, despite Liszt's insistence that they were brown. In Maria Wodzinska's watercolor portrait (which is an impressive painting, especially considering her age of 16), one can clearly see the blue, and she was looking straight at him at the time. Even more convincing, to me, is the fact that Rosemary Brown, the famous medium who channeled works of Chopin, Liszt, and a number of other "dead" composers, perceived his eyes as "a beautiful clear grey-blue."

John:

There are numerous errors in the above answers regarding the color of Chopin's eyes. Liszt did not state that Chopin's eyes were brown but rather that they were blue. There is also no documented record of Chopin's passport stating his eye color as being blue. I have yet to see prove of this particular passport.
Many books on the life of Chopin disagree on eye color. It is most probably either blue or brown. Frederick Nieck's book on Chopin's life references several of Chopin's childhood friends who all report a brownish color. Nieck's descredits Liszt's account of his eyes being blue.
It is most likely that Chopin's eyes were of a brown color.