Dali and Prince Faucigny Lucinge

Prince Faucigny Lucinge was an avid collector of art. This post looks at the relationship between the artist Salvador Dali and Prince Faucigny Lucinge.

Dali paints a scene
near Figueres
at 6 years of age

The Persistence of Memory

The Marquis of Dali de Pubol was born Salvador Domingo Felipe Dali i Domenech. His life begins on May 11, 1904, in Figueres, Spain. As Salvador Dali the painter he becomes best known for works like The Basket of Bread, and The Persistence of Memory.  

Dali once described himself as a fish swimming between " the cold water of art and the warm water of science". Like many other artists his artistic talent was somewhat influenced by a lifelong deep interest in science. He studied optics, physics, genetics, natural history, and many other science foundations and his surrealist paintings show the level of abstraction which the Spanish artist was capable of realizing.

Even a few years before his death in 1984 Dali is seriously contemplating the spiritual nature of science which is evident in a painting titled In Search of the Fourth Dimension (1979).

He meets Paul Eluard, aka. Eugene Grindel, one of the founders of the surrealist movement that took hold of the art world in the 1920's and included names like Picasso, Max Ernst, Dali, and others. Eluard was at one time married to Russian born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova who went by the name Gala. Gala meets Dali when they visit him in Spain in 1929. She leaves Eluard and marries Salvador Dali in 1934 after having lived with him since 1929.

In 1929 and 1930 Dali produces two films with Luis Brunuel. ( An Andalution Dog, The Golden Age ).

Dali became a leader of the Surrealists but was expelled from the Surrealist movement after being tried by the members beginning in 1934 for having clashing ideas.

Prince Aymon de Faucigny- Lucinge of Paris.

Aymon de Faucigny
Coat of Arms

In 1903 Joseph Stickney, a wealthy railroad tycoon and land developer dies. His last project was the building of a huge resort in the Bretton Woods of New Hamshire. Joseph Stickney was married to the daughter of a Boston butcher. Caroline Foster Stickney was 34 years old when her 62 year old husband passed on and she goes on to inherit Mount Washington Resort and the rest of the Stickney fortune. Joseph Stickney's funeral was lavish and people like JP Morgan and William Rockefeller were invited to carry the casket to the final resting place. The Hotel near the White Mountain National Forest became famous in 1944 when it hosted the 44 nation conference which led to the signing of the Bretton Woods agreement.

Ten years pass and Carolyn continues to manage the Stickney fortune. In 1912 she meets Prince Faucigny-Lucinge of Paris and soon they are married. The marriage ends in 1922 when the Prince passes away. Carolyn (de facto Princess to her employees) Faucigny Lucinge passes away in 1936.

The Mount Washington Resort story becomes more interesting if one takes into consideration that many people claim that the ghost of the Stickney-Faucigny-Lucinge widow haunts room 314 to this very day.

However there is a problem at this point.

The Dali and Prince Faucigny Lucinge relationship cannot include Aymon de Faucigny Lucinge since he passes away in 1922 and according to Michael Elsohn Ross in Salvador Dali and the Surrealists, the Faucigny Lucinge character who influences collectors towards Dali's work only comes on the scene in the late 1920's.

So which French Prince Faucigny Lucinge is Ross talking about ?

The Prince Aymon de Faucigny Lucinge mentioned in the Stickney story was born to Louis de Faucigny-Lucinge and Amanda ( Henriette Victoria Amanda Marie de Mailly Nesle) on May 31, 1862. He dies at the age of 60 in 1922. Louis is the son of Ferdinand who is the son of the Marquis Amedee (Amedeus) who is the son of Count Joseph Louis

Faucigny Lucinge princes that live in 1930 include Bertrand, Gerard, Rodolphe, Humbert, Rogatien, more ?????

Enter Baba d'Erlanger to help us clarify the Dali and Prince Faucigny Lucinge mystery.

She was a Baroness and her real name was Liliane Marie Mathilde Beaumont. Baroness d'Erlanger was born in 1902 and became a professional mannequin and a socialite who hung out with the artistic crowd.  Her father was Baron Emile Beaumont and he was a wealthy banker. Baba marries Jean Louis de Faucigny Lucinge in 1923.

Suddenly we know which French Prince Dali was being influenced by. The fashion Baroness turned Princess dies at Cannes in 1945 and Prince Jean Louis the Faucigny Lucinge lives from 1904 to 1992.

Jean Louis was the son of Prince Guy de Faucigny Lucinge who was the son of Prince Charles of Faucigny Lucinge who was the son of Ferdinand ( 1789-1866 ) - Prince of Cystria, who was the son of Amedeus (1755 - 1801) - Marquis de Coligny, who was the son of Joseph Louis (1731-1781) - Count of Lucinge.

The Dali and Prince Faucigny Lucinge is a story that encompasses personalities from Europe that go on to influence the Americas.

Faucigny is a location in Haute-Savoie, France. Haute Savoie translated to the romance language of Arpitan (Franco-Provencal) is Savoue d'Amont. The English know Faucigny as Upper Savoy. Faucigny is located in the Alps mountain range and part of the Rhone-Alps region. 

The borders of Upper Savoy are Geneva, Switzerland on the north, the Swiss county of Valais and the Italian Aosta valley on the east, France's Ain district on the west, and the Savoy district on the south.

The story of the Prince begins in about 1000 BC with Rudolph I of Faucigny.  Rudolph I fathers Aymon through Constance de Beauvoir.

This Aymon de Faucigny is a Count and has a daughter and a son. The son is a Baron named Henry I and the daughter is Beatrix. The mother is Clemencia.

The lineage traces a path into the future and could be traced back into the deeper past if one took the time to research it.

Lucinge is another community in Upper Savoy in France which has been populated since the stoneages. Some say the Etruscans who emerged out of the Mediterranean near Italy came to the area as early as 1000 BC and lived in close proximity with the Celts and Gauls. The Etruscans were perhaps somehow involved with the initial reforms against the Greek ideology. The legend of Mars giving birth to Remus and Romulus may somehow been borne out of the Etruscan mystery but that is only speculation.

Once the Romans have become a super power then the Gauls become a threat that they manage through politics and war in the Gallo-Roman period. The Gaulish culture is one where the Savoy people are Romanized. Here one finds all types of cults based on loose mixes of Celtic religious convictions and Latin monotheism after Constantine.