Tinco Martinus Lycklama à Nijeholt (9 July 1837, in Beetsterzwaag[1] – 7 December 1900, in Cannes) was a Frisian aristocrat, adventurer, writer and socialite, also considered one of the first Dutch orientalists.

Tinco Lycklama remained a citizen of Cannes until his death in 1900 and was a key personality in the fin de siècle French Riviera.

On 21 July 1875, in Oosterhout, he married the Catholic baroness Juliana Agatha Jacoba thoe Schwartzenberg en Hohenlansberg (Oosterhout, 11 June 1845 - Leeuwarden, 11 June 1914),[3] a daughter of Gemme Onuphrius Tjalling Burmania, Baron thoe Schwartzenberg en Hohenlansberg (1806-1862) and of Hendrika de Hoogh (1803-1880).

Tinco grew up in a wealthy aristocratic family that owed its fortune to large land holdings, interests in the turf industry, smart marriages, and its position in Frisia's traditional elite.

His ambition was not to re-write the region's history, but rather to observe and to share the contemporary situation of this little-known part of the world, and to do so from a variety of angles (including tourism).

In September 1868, he left the Middle East and travelled back to the Netherlands via Constantinople, Varna, Pest, and Vienna.

In 1870, he recruited a private secretary, the Frenchman Ernest Massenot, whose mission consisted of building a descriptive inventory of the collection.

Tinco not only loved the mild climate in Cannes: he also found an international community that was keen on his colourful travel stories.

The end result is an opus of over 2,200 pages (in four volumes), rich in observations on culture, politics, arts, tourism, and people.

Tinco took up quarters in the luxurious Villa Escarras, situated on today's boulevard Carnot near the rue Lord Byron.

At that time, Cannes was still a charming little town but expanding with a growing number of pretty villas, mostly west of the Mont-Chevalier.

The construction of a railroad connecting Paris to the Mediterranean coast, and the opening of a station in Cannes in 1863, profoundly changed the landscape of the town.

In 1875, at Oosterhout (Netherlands), Tinco married Juliana Agatha Jacoba thoe Schwartzenberg en Hohenlansberg, who moved with him to Cannes.

Rapidly they became welcome guests and hosts for the upper classes, who included rich bourgeois and aristocrats from Paris, England, Russia, Prussia... Tinco's "bals masqués" were major events.

This erudite society has counted many illustrious personalities such as the writer Guy de Maupassant, the Nobel Prize winner Frédéric Mistral, and Pedro II, the emperor of Brazil.

These collections became the cornerstone of the modern Musée de la Castre, the municipal museum of Cannes located on the Mont-Chevalier (better known as the "Suquet", appreciated for its winding streets with restaurants and bars).

Tinco Martinus Lycklama à Nijeholt and Baroness thoe Schwartzenberg belong among those who shaped Cannes in the latter part of the 19th century.

Tinco maintained close personal ties with the St. Francis parish at Wolvega (Frisia), where he built a chapel which became his (and his wife's) last resting place.

The procession left the Villa Lycklama for the "Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Voyage" church, where mayor Jean Hibert pronounced an elegy for his close friend.