LA CHAMBRE DES ÉCUREUILS

An emblematic figure of the early 20^th century arts and literary scene, and an important and flamboyant patron, Marie Laure de Noailles is an author in her own right well worth rediscovering.

Born in 1902 in Paris, Marie Laure Bischoffsheim came from French nobility (a direct descendent of the Marquis de Sade) and a family of German Jewish bankers, of which she was the sole heir. Together with Viscount Charles de Noailles, whom she married in 1923, they formed one of the most colourful patronage couples of the 20^th century. They supported the literary and artistic avant-garde from the early 1920s to 1970, financing numerous film projects (including Man Ray’s Les Mystères du château de Dé, Jean Cocteau’s The Blood of a Poet and Luis Buñuel’s L’Âge d’or), buying manuscripts by René Char, Robert Desnos and Georges Bataille, and amassing a huge collection of both classic and modern works of art. From their private town house in the 16^th arrondissement of Paris to the Clos Saint-Bernard, known as the villa Noailles (now an art centre of national interest), they never stopped broadening the definition of patronage by exploring all its forms.

Alongside her role as benefactor, Marie Laure de Noailles was also the author of an astonishing – since forgotten – body of work, combining poetry, fiction and literary essays. La Chambre des écureuils, perhaps her most accomplished novel, was written in 1946 and published in 1955. With this text, which has been compared to Bonjour tristesse, she romanticises an adolescence confined to an Italian neoclassical world. Poetically elegant, La Chambre des écureuils creates an atmosphere imbued with sunshine, melancholy and solitude.

At the initiative of and in close collaboration with the villa Noailles art centre, Seghers and 7L publishing houses have republished this work as a deluxe edition (on fine paper, bound, hardback and canvas-covered) to mark the centenary of the villa Noailles and the opening of the 38^th International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Accessories – Hyères on 12^th October 2023.