Nina de Callias

[3] The daughter of a rich Lyon lawyer, after her marriage to Hector de Callias (comte de Callias, a writer and journalist on Le Figaro) she hosted one of the most prominent literary and artistic salons of Paris.

[4] Guests who attended her salons included Hector Berlioz, Edgar Degas, Anatole France, Augusta Holmes, Stéphane Mallarme, Manet, Arthur Rimbaud, and Richard Wagner, among others.

By 1869 she was hosting young poets in search of new forms of expression, known collectively as the Parnassians.

[4] She composed works for piano[5] and voice,[6] and contributed two poems to Le Parnasse contemporain (2nd volume): La Jalousie du jeune Dieu and Tristan & Iseult.

Back in France, she contributed to the collective anthology Dixains Réalistes and to the circle known as The Hydropaths, a group considered to be a vital link in the development of Symbolism.