[1] Son of Ernest André (1803–1864), Edouard André was born into a family of rich banker Protestants, native to the southeast of France (Nîmes dans le Gard), who flourished during the Second French Empire.

In firm support of Napoleon III and sensitive to Saint-Simonian ideas, the Andre family was involved in financing the modernization of France and large companies of the imperial regime.

With the Rothschilds, 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.