CIRCA 1720

The noted collector Comte Henri de Greffulhe and his wife Elisabeth were leading members of Parisian society in the last decades of the 19th century and up to World War I. The Comtesse Elisabeth de Greffulhe (1860-1952) was a famous beauty of her day and her salon was a magnet for leading members of the cultural and political gratin of the time such as Edmond de Goncourt, Gabriel Fauré, Franz Liszt, Robert de Montesquiou, the Princess Bibesco, François Mauriac and most famously Marcel Proust. The character of the Duchesse de Guermantes in Proust's 'La Recherche du Temps Perdu' was in large part based on the Comtesse de Greffulhe.