That sum was five times higher than the initial asking price.
Other personal items belonging to Szpilman auctioned off included an Omega silver pocket watch, which fetched an equivalent of EUR 55,000, and a black Mount Blanc fountain pen, sold for EUR 20,000.
Both items were bought by Szpilman in Paris in 1937 and are his only belongings that survived his time in the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto and in the ruins of Warsaw.
A total of some 50 items of memorabilia linked to the pianist were sold; all were bought by private collectors in Poland and abroad.
The auction was organized by Szpilman’s two sons, who want to use the proceeds for the worldwide promotion of their father’s musical legacy.
Born in 1911, Szpilman studied the piano and composition in Warsaw and Berlin. He worked at Polish Radio for four years until September 23, 1939.
On that day, he played the last recital of Chopin’s music in the studio of Polish Radio, which subsequently stopped functioning as a result of German bombings.
Szpilman miraculously avoided capture by the Nazis. In the final months of the war, he found shelter in the ruins of Warsaw and survived thanks to help from his Polish friends and a German Army officer. After the war, he served as director of Polish Radio’s music department for 18 years.
Szpilman then founded the Warsaw Piano Quintet, which toured the world for more than two decades.
His compositional output includes some 500 songs, many of which became hits, and several symphonic works which have remained in the concert repertoire until today.
He died in 2000 at the age of 88.
(mk/pk)
