Marie-Laure de Noailles

Marie-Laure Henriette Anne de Noailles, Vicomtesse de Noailles (French pronunciation: [maʁi lɔʁ ɑ̃ʁjɛt an də nɔaj vikɔ̃tɛs də nɔaj]; née Bischoffsheim; 31 October 1902 – 29 January 1970) was a French artist, regarded one of the 20th century's most daring and influential patrons of the arts, noted for her associations with Salvador Dalí, Balthus, Jean Cocteau, Ned Rorem, Man Ray, Luis Buñuel, Francis Poulenc, Wolfgang Paalen, Jean Hugo, Jean-Michel Frank and others as well as her tempestuous life and eccentric personality.

She was born on 31 October 1902, the only child of Marie-Thérèse de Chevigné, a French aristocrat, and Maurice Bischoffsheim, a Paris banker of German Jewish and American Quaker descent.

In 1923, after a brief romance with the artist Jean Cocteau, Marie-Laure Bischoffsheim married Charles, Vicomte de Noailles (26 September 1891 – 28 April 1981).

Together, the couple had two daughters: Marie-Laure de Noailles and her husband moved to the fabled hôtel particulier at 11 Place des États-Unis in Paris, which was built by her grandfather, Bischoffsheim.

In 1936, she acquired Wolfgang Paalen´s object Chaise envahie de Lierre in André Breton´s Galerie Gradiva and decorated her bathroom with it.