Louis Cahen d'Anvers

Count Louis Raphaël Cahen d'Anvers (24 May 1837 – 20 December 1922) was a French banker.

Louis Cahen d'Anvers
Born
Louis Raphaël Cahen d'Anvers

(1837-05-24)24 May 1837
Antwerp, Belgium
Died20 December 1922(1922-12-20) (aged 85)
Paris, France
NationalityFrench
OccupationBanker, politician

Born in 1837 as the son of Meyer Joseph Cahen d'Anvers and Clara Bischoffsheim (1810-1876), he was a scion of two wealthy Jewish banking families. He married Louise de Morpurgo, of an also wealthy Sephardi Jewish family from Triest. Two of their daughters, Alice (1876–1965) and Elisabeth (1874–1944 KZ Auschwitz), were painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir in Pink and Blue in 1881. Alice married Major General Sir Charles Townshend and was the grandmother of Belgian-American journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave.[1][2]

"Pink and Blue" {Alice on the left}
Portrait of Mademoiselle Irène Cahen d'Anvers

A third daughter, Irène (1872 -1963) was also the subject of a Renoir painting entitled Little Irène. Louis was so dissatisfied with the painting that he hung it in the servants' quarters and delayed payment of only 1500 francs.[3] Irene married Moïse de Camondo in 1891 and divorced in 1902.

During the Nazi occupation of France, Irène survived by escaping to a villa in the south of France. Her daughter, Béatrice died in the Auschwitz concentration camp.[4]

References
  1. "Obituary: Sir C. Townsend". The Times. The Times Digital Archive. 19 May 1924. p. 9.
  2. "Arnaud de Borchgrave Awarded the Legion of Honor". Embassy of France in Washington, D.C. 21 July 2014. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  3. Nord, Philip G. (2000). Impressionists and Politics: Art and Democracy in the Nineteenth Century. London: Routledge. p. 60. ISBN 041507715X.
  4. A Secret Paris Museum and an Aristocratic Family Decimated by the Holocaust
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.