Bois sculpté et peint ; marbre.
H. 91 cm. (36 in.) ; L. 126 cm. (49 ¾ in.) ; Pr. 59 cm. (23 ¼ in.).
PROVENANCE : collection des ducs de Mortemart au château du Réveillon, à Entrains-sur-Nohain, dans la Nièvre.
Born on June 17, 1856 in Saint-Vrain in Essonne, Arthur Casimir Victurnien de Rochechouart of Mortemart was the son of François Marie-Victurnien de Rochechouart (1832-1893), Duke of Mortemart, and Virginie-Marie-Louise de Sainte-Aldegonde (1835-1900). He inherited his father’s titles on the latter’s death. On June 8, 1880, he married Hélène von Hunolstein (1859 – 1904) in Paris, daughter of Joseph Philippe Léopold von Hunolstein and Laure de Crussol d’Uzès, who died in a fire at the Bazar de la Charité in Paris on May 4, 1897. It is due to this marriage that the Dukes of Mortemart came into possession of Château du Réveillon in the Nièvre region. The couple had one son, François de Rochechouart de Mortemart (1881-1918), Prince de Tonnay Charente, who married Marguerite de La Rochefoucault (1886-1929) on September 1, 1907. Arthur Casimir Victurnien de Rochechouart died in Paris on May 9, 1926, aged 69.
Château du Réveillon (Entrains-sur-Nohain, Nièvre), property of the Dukes of Mortemart by alliance with the Hunolstein family in 1880
The grand Château du Réveillon, which overlooks the small town of Entrains and the upper reaches of Nohain in the Nièvre region, was built in the mid-19th century, replacing an old fortified house with several towers, moats and a drawbridge, the seat of an ancient seigneury held for over three centuries – from the 12th to the 16th century – by the de Veauce family.
Passed circa 1550 to Edme de Chassy, who sold it shortly after to Nicolas Bolacre, a bourgeois from Nevers, who in turn relinquished it in 1579. The Réveillon then passed to Claude de Rochefort, whose descendants kept it until the eve of the French Revolution.
The polemicist Henri Rochefort (1831-1913) (“Victor-Henri de Rochefort-Luçay” by his real name), was their direct descendant, but he no longer had any ties to the Nièvre region.
After several transfers, the Réveillon was bought in 1809 by Count Antoine Roy, a minister during the Restoration, and remained in his descendants until the present day, passing through marriage into great families. Count Roy had undertaken the complete reconstruction of the château, which was completed during the Second Empire, in the neo-Louis XIII style in vogue at the time, by his great-grandson by marriage, Count Joseph Philippe Léopold von Hunolstein, father of Hélène von Hunolstein.
