Louis Cahen d'Anvers

{{short description|French-Jewish banker}}

{{Expand French|topic=bio|Louis Cahen d'Anvers|date=July 2019}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Louis Cahen d'Anvers

| image = Louis Cahen d'Anvers.png

| alt =

| caption =

| birth_name = Louis Raphaël Cahen d'Anvers

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1837|5|24|df=y}}

| birth_place = Antwerp, Belgium

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1922|12|20|1837|5|24|df=y}}

| death_place = Paris, France

| nationality = French

| other_names =

| occupation = Banker, politician

| known_for =

}}

Count Louis Raphaël Cahen d'Anvers (24 May 1837 – 20 December 1922) was a French banker.

Life and family

Born in 1837 as the son of Meyer Joseph Cahen d'Anvers and Clara Bischoffsheim (1810–1876), he was a scion of two wealthy Jewish banking families.The Cahen d'Anvers family claimed descent from the Davidic Line see [https://www.jewishrefugees.org.uk/tag/jews-of-turkey jewish refugees] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211205101024/https://www.jewishrefugees.org.uk/tag/jews-of-turkey |date=2021-12-05 }} He married Louise de Morpurgo, who was from a wealthy Sephardi Jewish family from Trieste.

File:Renoir Mlles Cahen d Anvers.jpg (Alice on the left)]]

Two of their daughters, Alice (1876–1965) and Elisabeth (1874–1944 KZ Auschwitz), were painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir in Pink and Blue in 1881. Alice married Major General Sir Charles Townshend and was the grandmother of Belgian-American journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave.{{cite news |title=Obituary: Sir C. Townsend |work=The Times |page=9 |date=19 May 1924 }}{{cite news|title=Arnaud de Borchgrave Awarded the Legion of Honor|url=http://franceintheus.org/spip.php?article5845|accessdate=21 June 2017|publisher=Embassy of France in Washington, D.C.|date=21 July 2014|language=en|archive-date=11 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181011054048/https://franceintheus.org/spip.php?article5845|url-status=live}}

File:Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1880, Portrait of Mademoiselle Irène Cahen d'Anvers, Sammlung E.G. Bührle.jpg]]

A third daughter, Irène (1872–1963), was the subject of a Renoir painting entitled Little Irène in 1880. Louis was so dissatisfied with the painting that he hung it in the servants' quarters and delayed payment of only 1500 francs.{{cite book |last=Nord |first=Philip G. |year=2000 |title=Impressionists and Politics: Art and Democracy in the Nineteenth Century |location=London |publisher=Routledge |isbn=041507715X |page=60 }} Irène married Moïse de Camondo in 1891 and divorced in 1902. During the Nazi occupation of France, Irène survived by escaping to a villa in the south of France. Her daughter, Béatrice, was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp.{{Cite web |url=https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a9474/camondo-museum-paris/ |title=A Secret Paris Museum and an Aristocratic Family Decimated by the Holocaust |access-date=2021-02-04 |archive-date=2023-07-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230730102243/https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a9474/camondo-museum-paris/ |url-status=live }}

References