James-Alexandre de Pourtalès


James-Alexandre de Pourtalès, Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier was a Swiss-French banker, diplomat and art collector.

Early life

The Count de Pourtalès was born in Neuchâtel, then in the Principality of Neuchâtel under Prussian rule, into a large family of Protestant financiers on 28 November 1776. He was the son of Countess Rose Augustine Marie de Luze and Jacques-Louis de Pourtalès, a banker in Naples who amassed a fortune in commerce and was made a count by King Frederick William II. Among his siblings were Louis de Pourtalès and Frédéric de Pourtalès.
His paternal grandparents were Jérémie de Pourtalès and Marguerite de Luze. The Pourtalès family were French Huguenots who settled in Neuchâtel following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. His maternal grandparents were the former Marianne-Françoise Warney and Baron Jean-Jacques III de Luze, a prosperous textile manufacturer at Colombier and were both friends of writer and philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.. They had an elegant country house near the governor's château in what was then the principality of Neuchâtel.

Career

In 1813, he acquired the seigneury of Gorgier, which he added to the family name, from Charles Henry, Vicomte de Gorgier. He served as Chamberlain to the King of Prussia and was awarded the title of Count on 20 November 1814 by King Frederick William III, who ruled Prussia during the Napoleonic Wars and the end of the Holy Roman Empire. Pourtalès freed the Bérochaux from cartage chores in 1822 and, in recognition, received a bench with his coat of arms at the church. From 1816 to 1829, he was a member of the General Audiences.

Residences and art collection

In 1815, he settled in Paris before residing in a mansion in the Place Vendôme in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. Between 1838 and 1839, Pourtalès had Félix Duban build the Pourtalès mansion, a hôtel particulier on Rue Tronchet in the 6th arrondissement of Lyon. At his mansion, Pourtalès assembled one of the most important collections of antiques and paintings of his time, including the Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals and works by Bronzino, Rembrandt, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and a Sandro Botticelli portrait. In 1825, he donated a mummy and coffin he acquired from the Thedenat-Duvent sale, to the Berlin Museum. In February and March 1865, ten years after his death, his collection was auctioned off in Paris in accordance with his will. The majority of his collection was photographed and published in a large folio by Goupil & Cie. The Laughing Cavalier was purchased by the Marquess of Hertford. Lord Amherst bought some of the important Egyptian objects. Sir Charles Newton spent 60,919 francs on bronzes and vases for the British Museum, and 47,000 francs on Giustiniani's Apollo.
In 1806, he purchased the Château de Bandeville in Saint-Cyr-sous-Dourdan where, in 1833, he had the English-style park redeveloped by landscape designer Louis-Sulpice Varé, in one of the first known works. Today, Varé is known for his French landscape gardens at several famous chateaux, including the Château de Châtenay-en-France, and the Bois de Boulogne park.
In 1809, he also acquired Château de Luins in the Swiss Canton of Vaud for 150,000 Swiss francs. The estate passed to his eldest daughter and her husband, the Marquis de Ganay, and their family.

Personal life

On 12 June 1809, he was married to Anne Henriette de Palézieux-Falconnet in Neuchâtel. His wife was a daughter of banker Jean Louis de Palézieux-Falconnet and the former Anna Hunter, an American who was the sister of William Hunter, a U.S. Senator from Newport, Rhode Island. His wife's sister, Eliza Augusta, married the American archeologist and artist John Izard Middleton. Together, they were the parents of:
Count de Pourtalès died on 24 March 1855.

Descendants

Through his eldest daughter Élisa, he was a grandfather of General Jacques de Ganay, who married Renée de Maillé de La Tour-Landry, the third daughter of Jaquelin Armand Charles, Duc de Maillé and his wife Jeanne d'Osmond.
Through his son Henri, he was a grandfather of Count Arthur de Pourtalès, a diplomat who twice married Americans.