Émilien de Nieuwerkerke

Thécla's brother Gustave was a diplomat and mayor of Juvisy and married Pauline de Württemberg, illegitimate daughter of Prince Paul - uncle of Mathilde Bonaparte - and of Lady Whittingham.

Vigorous, majestic and with a certain air to him, to which he joined physical presence, a great amenity, well-spokenness and the art of compliment - he thus became known as the "beautiful Batavian" ("beau Batave").

He was adored by women (one declared "He has the air of a resting lion"), as the Goncourts affirmed in their Journal of 10 November 1863 - "he at once resembles Charlemagne and a handsome chasseur behind the cars".

He thus took classes in the studios of Pradier and baron Carlo Marochetti and attempted a statuette of his cousin Horace de Viel-Castel, who became curator of the newly created Musée des Souverains at the Louvre in December 1852 and a chronicler of the imperial court.

This was destroyed between November 1870 and February 1871 and the only surviving copy of it is that inaugurated on 20 August 1854 at the centre of place Napoléon in La Roche-Sur-Yon (the former "Napoléon-Vendée"), main town and prefecture of this Napoleon-founded department.

It was at his request that the painter William Wyld (of English birth but resident in Paris) was allowed to exhibit in the French section of the 1855 Exposition Universelle (the second after that in London in 1851).

These came from Nieuwerkerke's extraordinary collection (for which no list or inventory survives) of more than 800 historic art objects, in metal and gold, sculptures, ceramics, painted enamel, glass and furniture.

There he lived the last 20 years of his life with his friends the Cantacuzène princesses, even starting a smaller collection of Renaissance Italian works (though he quickly had to re-sell his acquisitions).