Étienne de Beaumont, comte Bonnin de la Bonninière de Beaumont (9 March 1883, Paris - 4 February 1956, Paris), French aristocrat and life-long patron of the arts. A leading figure in Parisian high society from before the First World War until after the Second - and especially active during the Twenties - with his wife, née Édith de Taisne (1876-1952), he was famous for his elaborate and flamboyant parties and masquerade balls; he commissioned many of the leading avant-garde artists of the day to create the extravagant décor for these events, and designed many of the often outrageous masquerade costumes himself.
He was friend and generous patron to many of the most celebrated artists, writers, composers, and filmmakers of the inter-war period, including Cocteau, Picasso, Braque, Satie, Tzara, and Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. In 1924, for Léonide Massine - temporarily broken with Diaghilev - the comte, himself, designed the ballet, Le Beau Danube. That same year, the writer Raymond Radiguet based the main character in his brilliant novel, Le Bal du Comte d’Orgel, on Beaumont - not entirely flatteringly - and the comte's home, the beautifully appointed hôtel de Masseran in Paris' seventh arrondissement, inspired the book's setting.
