Frederic Chopin bust, methinks, Waverley Park Terrace

Image: © kim traynor Taken: 23 Apr 2012

I was completely mystified when I came across this easily missed sculpture high up on the side of a late-Victorian tenement. I thought it must be somehow connected with the bust of Robert Burns at the other end of the street. I couldn't think of another literary figure it might be and started googling for images of Scottish poets who were near-contemporaries of Burns. Drawing a blank, I turned to other figures from the Walter Scott period (because of the street name) and, lo and behold, up came a portrait of the young Frederic Chopin with his very distinctive hairstyle and dress from the 1840s. So, could it be connected with his visit to Edinburgh in 1848? No. As I discovered while pursuing the origin of the name of nearby Tytler Gardens, this tenement was built on the grounds of Comely Gardens*, a Victorian pleasure park (hence the street name) where the leisured classes promenaded, took light refreshment and - ah ha - danced in the open air! One can just imagine those normally staid Edinburgh folk tapping their feet to a polonaise and maybe even whirling round to a mazurka. So, I deduce that the sculptures adorned the garden grounds and were rescued when they were built over in the 1890s. * "A wretched attempt to imitate Vauxhall for which neither the climate nor the gardens are adapted." -- Hugo Arnot, The History of Edinburgh, 1799 Image

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