@chopininstitute

🎂 George Sand’s 222nd birthday ✒️ “I came into the world on July 5, 1804, my father was playing the violin and my mother wore a pretty pink dress. It took but a minute. I at least had that portion of happiness that my Aunt Lucie predicted of not making my mother labor too long.” – Aurora Dudevant, née Dupin, known to the world by her literary pseudonym George Sand, describes the moment of her birth in “Story of My Life” – “Histoire de ma vie”– her multi-volume autobiography (the first French book edition from 1854–1855 contained twenty volumes). She was born in Paris, less than a month after her parents’ wedding – an obvious misalliance: her mother, Antoinette-Sophie-Victoire Delaborde, was a fowler’s daughter and a vivandière; her father, Maurice Dupin, came from an upper-class, semi-aristocratic family – on his mother’s side, he was a descendant of Marshal Maurice de Saxe of France, a count, and briefly even duke of Courland and Semigallia. George was always proud of her dual heritage and of being a legitimate child. Raised by her grandmother (Maurice died after a fall from a horse just four years later, and her mother agreed to leave her daughter to her mother-in-law), Aurora grew up on the family estate in Nohant. George was the most important woman in Fryderyk Chopin’s life. Their affair began in 1838 and lasted for nine years. As the composer’s illness progressed, Sand became his devoted caregiver, providing him with exceptional creative opportunities, particularly thanks to their stays together at her family estate in Nohant. It was during the summer months, at this home near Paris, that Fryderyk wrote his greatest masterpieces. 📚 Sand over the course of several decades penned dozens of novels – extremely popular in the 19th century – as well as stage plays and journalistic pieces. George became a symbol of women’s creative freedom and the rejection of convention, and today her work is once again the subject of increasing interest. We will be writing more about this exceptional artist on our blog this Friday, and on July 11, we invite you to the temporary exhibition ‘In a kaleidoscope of life and art. George Sand (1804–1876)" in Żelazowa Wola.

On the profile · Jul 1, 2026