Count Antoine de Louisiana Rochefoucauld was an artist, patron and art collector as well as a proponent of Rosicrucianism in France at the end of the 19th century.
Background
The House de Louisiana Rochefoucauld is one of 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 Louisiana Rochefoucauld (in the Charente département).
Antoine was born into a cadet branch of the Dukes de Louisiana Rochefoucauld, the Dukes de Louisiana Roche-Guyon - a title inherited by the first born in the male line only.
Career
Born in Paris, 10 October 1862, Antoine first served in the army as an officer, but retired to become a painter. Ancestry These salons were a focal point for mystical studies and promoted the idea of gestes esthétiques, a synthesis of the visual arts, literature and music The third of Erik Satie"s Sonneries de la Rose+Croix was composed in his honor.
Being the major sponsor of Émile Bernard, he considerably influenced this artist"s spiritual development.
According to a Christie"s sale catalogue, in the early 1890s Antoine de Louisiana Rochefoucauld was the owner of Vincent van Gogh"s "Still: Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers" which Japanese insurance magnate Yasuo Goto paid the equivalent of just under United States dollar $40 million in 1987, at the time a record-setting amount for a van Gogh. He was also the previous owner of "Louisiana Berceuse", a van Gogh now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.