Édouard François André (; 1833–1894) was a French banker, politician, soldier, and art collector. He was the husband of Nélie Jacquemart-André, the society painter. Their art collection is preserved at the

Musée Jacquemart-André The Musée Jacquemart-André (, ) is a private museum located at 158 Boulevard Haussmann in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, 8th arrondissement of Paris. The museum was created from the private home of Édouard André (art collector), Édouard An ...

in Paris.

Biography

Son of Ernest André (1803–1864), Edouard André was born into a family of rich banker Protestants, native to the southeast of

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

(Nîmes dans le Gard), who flourished during the

Second French Empire The Second French Empire, officially the French Empire, was the government of France from 1852 to 1870. It was established on 2 December 1852 by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, president of France under the French Second Republic, who proclaimed hi ...

. Edouard André lost his mother at the age of two. In firm support of

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last ...

and sensitive to

Saint-Simonian Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon (; ; 17 October 1760 – 19 May 1825), better known as Henri de Saint-Simon (), was a French political, economic and socialist theorist and businessman whose thought had a substantial influence on po ...

ideas, the Andre family was involved in financing the modernization of France and large companies of the imperial regime. He succeeded his father as MP of Gard, and as such, he was elected on 29 May 1864. He was re-elected at the 1869 French legislative election; he served until 4 September 1870,Fiche sur le site de l'Assemblée Nationale
/ref> when the Third Republic was established. After the fall of the Second Empire, he joined the

National Guard National guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards. ...

in 1871. With the

Rothschilds The Rothschild family ( , ) is a wealthy Ashkenazi Jews, Ashkenazi Jewish noble banking family originally from Frankfurt. The family's documented history starts in 16th-century Frankfurt; its name is derived from the family house, Rothschild, ...

, he negotiated the contribution that France had to pay to Germany after the surrender and brought the necessary amount together in a short time. Disappointed by politics, he decided to devote himself exclusively to his collections of paintings, furniture, and art objects. In 1868, he sought the architect Henri Parent to design a mansion of grand proportions on a plot of 5,700 m² in Paris for 1.5 million francs.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Andre, Edouard Francois 1833 births 1894 deaths Art collectors from Paris French Calvinist and Reformed Christians Bonapartists Members of the 3rd Corps législatif of the Second French Empire Members of the 4th Corps législatif of the Second French Empire Members of Parliament for Gard French bankers French art collectors École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr alumni French military personnel of the Second French intervention in Mexico Knights of the Legion of Honour