Count (Comte) Antoine de La Rochefoucauld (10 October 1862 – 8 September 1959) was an artist, patron and art collector as well as a proponent of

Rosicrucianism Rosicrucianism () is a spiritual and cultural movement that arose in early modern Europe in the early 17th century after the publication of several texts announcing to the world a new esoteric order. Rosicrucianism is symbolized by the Rose ...

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 ...

at the end of the 19th century.

Life

Marie Joseph Auguste Antoine de La Rochefoucauld was the fourth and youngest son of Count Alfred de La Rochefoucauld, 1st Duke of La Roche-Guyon, (1819–1883) and Isabelle Nivière (1833–1911), married since 1851. Born in Paris, 10 October 1862, Antoine first served in the army as an officer, but retired to become a painter. 23 June 1900 he married Eugenie Dubois (14 May 1862, Paris – 19 July 1936, Chateau de La Grand'Cour), daughter of Felix Dubois and Victorine Anfray. The couple had two children, Emmanuel (1898–1936) and Eugène (1901–1987).After the death of his wife, following the death of his first-born (12 June 1936) within a month at the same place, Antoine de La Rochefoucauld retired to Menilles, where he died 8 September 1959.

Ancestry

The House de La Rochefoucauld is one of the most famous families of French nobility, whose origins date back to the first Foucauld residing on the rock (''de la Roche''), with official evidence of nobility in 1019 and since the 13th century known as La Rochefoucauld (in the

Charente Charente (; Saintongese: ''Chérente''; ) is a department in the administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, southwestern France. It is named after the river Charente, the most important and longest river in the department, and also the r ...

''département''). Antoine was born into a

cadet branch A cadet branch consists of the male-line descendants of a monarch's or patriarch's younger sons ( cadets). In the ruling dynasties and noble families of much of Europe and Asia, the family's major assets (realm, titles, fiefs, property and incom ...

of the Dukes de La Rochefoucauld, the Dukes de La Roche-Guyon - a title inherited by the first born in the male line only.

Artist

Patron

De La Rochefoucauld financially supported Rosicrucian salons in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

in the 1890s and was Grand Prior of the movement from 1892 to 1897. These salons were a focal point for mystical studies and promoted the idea of '' gestes esthétiques,'' a synthesis of the

visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual a ...

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

and

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

. The third of

Erik Satie Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (born 17 May 18661 July 1925), better known as Erik Satie, was a French composer and pianist. The son of a French father and a British mother, he studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, Paris Conservatoire but was an undi ...

's '' Sonneries de la Rose+Croix'' was composed in his honor. Being the major sponsor of

Émile Bernard Émile Henri Bernard (; 28 April 1868 – 16 April 1941) was a French Post-Impressionist painter and writer, who had artistic friendships with Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and Eugène Boch, and at a later time, Paul Cézanne. Most of his no ...

, he considerably influenced this artist's spiritual development.

Collector

According to a

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shan ...

sale catalogue, in the early 1890s Antoine de La Rochefoucauld was the owner of

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks ...

's '' Still Life: Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers'' which

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to protect ...

magnate Yasuo Goto paid the equivalent of just under USD $40 million in 1987, at the time a record-setting amount for a van Gogh. He was also the previous owner of ''La Berceuse'', a van Gogh now in the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the list of largest art museums, 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 painting ...

.For the provenance of La Rochefoucauld's version of the painting see the museum'
database

Resources

Notes

References

* Robert A. Pincus-Witten, ''Occult Symbolism in France: Jose'phin Peladan and the Salons de la Rose-Croix'', Garland, New York, 1976 * Sophie Monneret, ''L'impressionisme et son époque, dictionnaire international'', Denoël, Paris 1979, pp. 413–414

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:La Rochefoucauld, Antoine de 1862 births 1959 deaths Counts of France 19th-century French painters French male painters 20th-century French painters 20th-century French male artists French art collectors Rosicrucians 19th-century French male artists