Alexandre Berthier, 4th Prince of Wagram

Alexandre Louis Philippe Marie Berthier, 4th Prince de Wagram (20 July 1883 – 30 May 1918) was a French nobleman and an art collector.

Alexandre Berthier
4th Prince of Wagram
Tenure15 July 1911 - 30 May 1918
PredecessorAlexandre Berthier
Full name
Alexandre Louis Philippe Marie Berthier
Born20 July 1883
Paris
Died30 May 1918
Fort de Condé-sur-Aisne
BuriedChâteau de Grosbois
Noble familyBerthier
FatherAlexandre Berthier, 3rd Prince of Wagram
MotherBaroness Bertha Clara von Rothschild

Early life edit

Born as the son of Alexandre Berthier, 3rd Prince of Wagram (1836–1911) and Baroness Bertha Clara von Rothschild (1862–1903[1]), member of the German branch of the prominent Rothschild family. The family resided in the ancestral home, the Château de Grosbois, a large estate in Boissy-Saint-Léger, southeast of Paris. He had two sisters, Elisabeth (1885–1960) and Marguerite (1887–1966) of whom the latter married Prince Jean Victor de Broglie.[1]

Biography edit

Alexandre Berthier was an active collector of modern art.[2] He owned works by Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Of the last he bequeathed 17 to the French nation in his will.[1]

Berthier bequeathed Grosbois to his sister before leaving for the Army and World War I on 1 August 1914. An army captain and the leader of a company of chasseurs during the Third Battle of the Aisne, he sustained wounds from shell fire at Fort de Condé-sur-Aisne and died from them on 30 May 1918. He had no issue.[1][3] He was buried at the Château de Grosbois like his father and grandfather.[4]

Ancestry edit

References edit

  • Max Reyne: Les 26 Maréchaux de Napoléon: Soldats de la Révolution, gloires de l'Empire, 1990

Footnotes edit

  1. ^ a b c d August 2018: Portrait of a ‘Princess’: Bertha Clara von Rothschild by Ellis William Roberts, 1890, The Rothschild Archive (accessed 4 August 2020)
  2. ^ Le maréchal Berthier démasqué, Le Figaro, 6 February 2014 (accessed 4 August 2020)
  3. ^ Château de Grosbois, montjoye.net (accessed 4 August 2020)
  4. ^ Reyne 1990