Battle of the baronesses: Rothschilds feud over art ownership

After three generations of genteel discretion bordering on secrecy, the international banking family the Rothschilds have been riven by rival claims to a vast collection of masterpieces that are part of the family's multibillion-euro fortune.

- Kim Willsher

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 Chateau de Pregny in Switzerland, which one visitor described as a "mini Louvre".

The Rothschild family maintain a code of silence over the exact contents of the family 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 and El Greco.

Nadine claims that her husband, who died in 1997, bequeathed her a substantial part of this collection, which she wants to put in a new museum in Geneva, dedicated to displaying the collection of the Edmond and Nadine de Rothschild Foundation she has created.

Ariane - who was married to Edmond and Nadine's only child, Benjamin, who died in 2021 - insists the collection must remain intact and in the chateau.

In court documents, Ariane, 60, has accused the elder baroness of being influenced by her advisers, drawing a parallel with the late L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt.

In 2011, Bettencourt's daughter sought to have her declared of unsound mind after she lavished an estimated €1bn (£870m) in gifts on a young photographer friend.