Personal life Born
Princess Anna Elisabeth Bibesco-Bassaraba de Brancovan in Paris, she was a descendant of the
Bibescu,
Craioveşti and
Mavrocordato families of Romanian
boyars. Her father was Prince
Grégoire Bibesco-Bassaraba, a son of
Wallachian Prince Gheorghe Bibesco and Zoe
Mavrocordato-Bassaraba de Brancovan. Her
Greek mother was Ralouka (Rachel) Mussurus, daughter of
Konstantinos Mousouros and a member of the
Mousouros family. She was a musician and pianist, who studied with (Dubois),
Frédéric Chopin's last student. According to historian Catherine Perry, her Greek ancestry: Noailles was also a great-great-granddaughter of
Sophronius of Vratsa, one of the leading figures of the
Bulgarian National Revival, through his grandson
Stefan Bogoridi,
caimacam of Moldavia and
Prince of Samos. She had friendly relations with the intellectual, literary and artistic elites of the day, including
Marcel Proust,
Francis Jammes,
Colette,
André Gide,
Frédéric Mistral,
Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac,
Rainer Maria Rilke,
Paul Valéry,
Jean Cocteau,
Pierre Loti,
Paul Hervieu, and
Max Jacob. She was a cousin of Prince
Antoine Bibesco and Princess
Marthe Bibesco. , 1913 In 1897 she married 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). She stood as patron to
Alice Sollier in the
Légion d'honneur, having been treated at both the doctor's Boulogne sanatorium and her Saint-Cloud clinic. She died in 1933 in Paris, at the age of 56, and was interred in the
Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Career , 1913 Starting with her first collection,
Le Coeur innombrable (1901) Anna de Noailles wrote nine volumes of poetry; three novels, including
Le Visage émerveillé (1904); a
novella on
gender relations called
Les Innocentes, ou La Sagesse des femmes (1923); a collection of prose poems called
Exactitudes (1930); and an
autobiography titled
Le Livre de ma vie (1932). A
New York Times writer in 1929 wrote that she was "one of the finest poets of present-day France."
In fine art Various visual artists of the day painted her portrait, including
Antonio de la Gándara,
Ignacio Zuloaga,
Kees van Dongen,
Jacques Émile Blanche, and the
British portrait painter
Philip de László. In 1906 her image was sculpted by
Auguste Rodin; the clay model can be seen today in the
Musée Rodin in Paris, and the finished marble bust is on display in New York City's
Metropolitan Museum. File:Comtesse Mathieu de Noailles (la Gandara).jpg|La Comtesse Mathieu de Noailles, 1899 by
Antonio de la Gándara File:Forain_-_Anna_de_Noailles.jpg|Anna, Comtesse de Noailles, 1914 by
Jean-Louis Forain File:Anna_De_Noailles_-_Vevey_-_03.jpg | Anna, Comtesse de Noailles, 1936 by
James Vibert ==Awards==