Anna de Noailles

Anna, Marquise Mathieu de Noailles (born Anna Elisabeth Bibesco-Bassaraba, Princess de Brancovan; 15 November 1876 – 30 April 1933 (56 years), was a French writer.

Biography

By Philip de László

Born in Paris and a descendant of the Bibescu and Craioveşti families of Romanian boyars, she was the daughter of Prince Grégoire Bibesco-Bassaraba, a son of Wallachian Prince Gheorghe Bibesco de Brancovan and Zoe Brâncoveanu. Her Greek mother was the former Ralouka (Rachel) Musuru, a well known musician, to whom the Polish composer Ignacy Paderewski dedicated several of compositions.

In 1897 she married Marquis Mathieu Fernand Frédéric Pascal de Noailles (1873-1942), the fourth son of the 7th Duke de Noailles. The couple soon became the toast of Parisian high society. They had one child, a son, Count Anne Jules de Noailles (1900-1979).

Anna de Noailles wrote three novels, an autobiography, and a number of poems. At the beginning of the 20th century, her salon on the Avenue Hoche attracted the intellectual, literary and artistic elite of the day including Francis Jammes, Paul Claudel, Colette, André Gide, Frédéric Mistral, Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac, Paul Valéry, Jean Cocteau, Alphonse Daudet, Pierre Loti, Paul Hervieu, and Max Jacob.

So popular was Anna de Noailles that various notable artists of the day painted her portrait, including Antonio de la Gandara, Kees van Dongen, Jacques Émile Blanche, and the British portrait painter Philip de Laszlo. In 1906 her image was sculpted by Auguste Rodin, and can be seen today in the Musée Rodin in Paris.

Anna de Noailles was the first woman to become a Commander of the Legion of Honor, and the Académie Française named a prize in her honor.

She died in 1933 and was interred in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Writings

• Le Cœur innombrable (1901)
• L'Ombre des jours (1902)
• Les Éblouissements (1907)
• Les Vivants et les Morts (1913)
• Les Forces éternelles (1920)
• Poème de l'amour (1924)
• L'Honneur de souffrir (1927)
• Exactitudes, Paris (1930)
• Derniers Vers et Poèmes d'enfance (1934)

External links

• Poems by Anna de Noailles
• Anna de Noailles, an introduction
• The Anna de Noailles french school in Bucharest, Romania
• Gabriel Badea-Päun: La chapelle Bibesco-Brancovan au cimetière du Père-Lachaise à Paris