Misia Sert (born Maria Zofia Olga Zenajda Godebska; 30 March 1872 – 15 October 1950) was known primarily as a patron of contemporary artists and musicians during the decades she hosted salons in her homes in Paris.

Maria Zofia Olga Zenajda Godebska, known as Misia, was born on 30 March 1872 in Tsarskoye Selo, a town known as the Tsar's village, 13 miles outside Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire.

While pregnant, she traveled from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoye Selo, where she surprised Godebski, who was working there temporarily on a court project and living with his current mistress.

Although her cellist grandfather Servais had died in 1866,[4] several years before Misia was born, others in the family circle taught her to read music as a young child and encouraged her to develop her gifts as a pianist.

Her only pleasure was the piano lessons she took one day a week from musician and composer Gabriel Fauré, who was then deputy organist at Église de la Madeleine.

[1] At age 21, Sert married her twenty-year-old cousin Thadée (Tadeusz) Natanson, a Polish émigré and member of a banking family.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec enjoyed playing bartender at the Natanson parties, and became known for serving a potent cocktail— a drink of colorful layered liqueurs dubbed the Pousse-Café.

In 1889, Natanson debuted La Revue Blanche, a periodical committed to nurturing new talent and showcasing the work of post-Impressionists known as Les Nabis.

Misia Natanson became the muse and symbol of La Revue blanche, appearing in advertising posters created by Toulouse-Lautrec, Édouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard.

Edwards accompanied Enrico Caruso on the piano while the Italian opera star entertained the assembled listeners with a repertory of Neapolitan songs.

[3] At an evening in 1914 her guests listened to Erik Satie at the piano playing his new work Trois morceaux en forme de poire.

[1][3] Given his success as an artist, this period began her reign and fame as Misia Sert, cultural patron and arbiter, which lasted more than thirty years.

The two women were said to have had an immediate bond of like souls, and Sert was attracted to Chanel by "her genius, lethal wit, sarcasm and maniacal destructiveness, which intrigued and appalled everyone."

For instance, on the opening night of the new work Petroushka, composed by Igor Stravinsky, she came to the rescue with the 4000 francs needed to prevent repossession of the costumes.

[5][15] During World War II and the Nazi occupation of Paris, Sert evaded serious condemnation for supporting the arts and some of the circle which German officials considered suspect.

[1] After a ceremony at Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption, the Polish church of Paris where Coco Chanel had prepared Sert's body for the funeral, she was buried in the cemetery of Samoreau.