The Vicomtesse of the Bizarre

Marie-Laure de Noailles, Vicomtesse de Noailles was one of the 20th century's most daring and influential patrons of the arts, noted for her associations with Salvador Dalí, Balthus, Jean Cocteau, Man Ray, Luis Buñuel, Francis Poulenc, Jean Hugo, Jean-Michel Frank and others as well as her tempestuous life and eccentric personality. She and her husband financed Ray's film Les Mystères du Château de Dé (1929), Poulenc's Aubade (1929), Buñuel and Dalí's film L'Âge d'Or (1930), and Cocteau's The Blood of a Poet (1930).

Marie-Laure de Noailles and her husband lived in the fabled hôtel particulier at 11 Place des États-Unis in Paris, which was built by her grandfather Bischoffsheim. Its interiors were redecorated in the 1920s by French minimalist designer Jean-Michel Frank. The house is now the Musée Baccarat and the headquarters of Baccarat, the crystal company.