Baronesses Nadine and Ariane de Rothschild at odds over future of Swiss chateau’s priceless contents
After three generations of genteel discretion bordering on secrecy, the international banking family the Rothschilds has been riven by rival claims to a multibillion-euro fortune including a vast collection of art masterpieces.
The battle now playing out in the courts and media has pitched the 93-year-old senior baroness, Nadine de Rothschild – widow of Edmond de Rothschild, the late scion of the French-Swiss branch of the family – against her daughter-in-law, Ariane de Rothschild, the current baroness.
The lawsuits centre on the family’s extensive collection of furniture, priceless historic objects and paintings held at the baronial domain, the Chateau de Pregny in Switzerland, which one visitor described as a “mini Louvre”.
The Rothschild family maintains a code of silence over the exact contents of the chateau overlooking Lake Geneva – where photographers and nosy visitors are banned – but they reportedly include treasures including Louis XVI furniture and works by Goya, Rembrandt, Fragonard, El Greco and Boucher.
