Miriam Caroline Alexandrine (Miriam Alexandrine) de Rothschild (1884-1965)
Miriam Caroline Alexandrine de Rothschild was born in Paris on 16 March 1884, the youngest child and only daughter of Edmond James de Rothschild (1845-19340 and Adelheid von Rothschild (1853-1935). Typically for a daughter of a Frankfurt Rothschild she received a rather strict upbringing, and was described by a cousin as having 'infinitely more brains and originality' than either of her brothers.
Alexandrine was similar to her cousin Alice: both were highly intelligent, authoritarian and inclined to appear plain. Alexandrine studied medicine, later specialising in dietetics. She married Albert Max Goldschmidt (1879-1941), a cousin, on 15 December 1910, but the couple separated during the First World War.
Alexandrine as a collector
Alexandrine was a judicious and respected collector of literary and musical manuscripts as well as first editions. In common with many other Rothschilds, she also had a taste for 18th-century art, inheriting part of her father Edmond's collection, and also becoming a respected collector in her own right. From the mid-1930s, Alexandrine acquired several paintings and works on paper by Post-Impressionist artists, including important works by Van Gogh, Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin. After her father's death in 1934, she inherited the Château Boulogne-Billancourt and maintained the property grounds, where she indulged her passion for gardening.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, Alexandrine fled to Switzerland. A year after Paris fell to Nazi Germany in 1941, the Château was seized, and her art collection was confiscated by the Nazi regime during the Occupation. In the post-war years, Alexandrine sought to trace and recover her looted art collection and library, but while she was able to recover some works, many others remained missing. In November 2021, Van Gogh's 'Meules de blé' (1888), was sold at Christie's for $35 million after a three party restitution agreement involving the heirs of Max Meirowsky, Alexandrine de Rothschild, and representatives for Cox's estate.
After the war Alexandrine spent increasingly long periods of time at St. Moritz in Switzerland, and she died aged 80 in Baden, Switzerland on 15 March 1965. She posthumously funded the Beni Israel Trust to Israel.
