Note: Please understand that this website is not affiliated with the D'Orsay company in any way, it is only a reference page for collectors and those who have enjoyed the D'Orsay fragrances.


The goal of this website is to show the present owners of the D'Orsay company how much we miss the discontinued classics and hopefully, if they see that there is enough interest and demand, they will bring back the perfume!


Please leave a comment below (for example: of why you liked the perfume, describe the scent, time period or age you wore it, who gave it to you or what occasion, any specific memories), who knows, perhaps someone from the company might see it.

History

Established in 1908 by a well organized investor group made up of Siegfried and Sally Berg, Leo Fink, and M. Van Dyck. They selected the D'Orsay name and coat of arms to create the aristocratic and luxurious image of a long-established French company. The investors even went so far as to purchase a castle as their headquarters.


The name for the company was a tribute to Alfred d'Orsay, known as the Comte d'Orsay (Count of Orsay) (Alfred Guillaume Gabriel; 4 September 1801–4 August 1852) was a French amateur artist, dandy, and man of fashion in the early- to mid-19th century.

In 1916 Parfums d'Orsay was acquired by Jeanne-Louise Guérin in association with Théophile Bader. 








Parfums D'Orsay produced all their packaging and perfumes.

From 1926 to 1933, Henri Robert worked as the perfumery chemist at D'Orsay.

In 1925, D'Orsay was awarded the Grand Prix at the exhibition in Paris. Several bottles were manufactured by Baccarat and Daum Nancy, such as the bottles for Toujours Fidele and Le Dandy.  


Other bottles and presentations were designed by Louis Süe and Andre Mare such as Le Dandy. Some bottles were designed by Paul C. Delaize in the 1920s and received American patents.

Jacques Guérin, Jeanne-Louise's son by Gaston Monteux, was sent to Toulouse to study chemistry. After completing his studies he joined his mother's company.

Jacques Guerin designed bottles for the company, most notably the twisted bottle for Divine.

In the 1970s Pierre Dinand and later in the 1990s, Federico Restrepo, lent their creativity to design other bottles such as the ones for Tilleul and Etiquette Bleue.





Cosmetics and Toiletries, 1922:
"Leo Fink, proprietor of Société Anonyme d'Orsay l7 Rue de la Paix Paris, France, accompanied by Mme Fink sailed on the Paris, September l2, for home after spending three weeks in the United States. The company operates factories in Chateau des Bouvets and has a branch in Grasse France. ln 1910 the d'Orsay line was introduced in the United States and until last February was handled by George Borgfeldt & Co. New York City. Since then the company has operated its own branch. It recently moved into new and larger quarters at 114 East 25th street New York City, where Arthur De Barry and Mme Renee Varin are in charge."




The Pharmaceutical Era, 1924:
"D'Orsay, Inc. That tastes in perfumes move in cycles, just as history is the experience of D'Orsay, Inc. and this season the firm is featuring particularly the old fashioned odors, such as violet, rose, lily of the valley and jasmine. These true odors were popular a generation ago. Then the bouquet odors gained the popular fancy, only to give place in the first rank to oriental scents. Now the old favorites are again in brisk demand, thus completing the cycle, with jasmine a ruling favorite. Even the men like jasmine and the perfumers in this see a ray of hope that eventually men of America may take more kindly to perfumes. Among the staples carried by D'Orsay is Toujours Fidele, containing a full line of perfume, face, sachet and talcum powders. Another favorite brand is Chevalier d'Orsay. Fleur de France is another line widely known with the trade, with the face powder being particularly popular. The American branch of the Paris house is managed by a woman Mme Varin. She has been with the D'Orsay concern for the last twelve years."


In 1936 Jean-Louise bought out her investors and Jacques Guerin became the director of Parfums d'Orsay. He divides his time between his Paris apartment, the factory located in Puteaux and its area of Luzarches, acquired in 1947. He created several fragrances and worked, among others, René Lalique for his bottles. In 1982, he left the presidency of Parfums d'Orsay just before the company foundered in 1983.






The production of D'Orsay's perfumes was halted during World War II and resumed after the war. However, their perfumes may not have reached US shores until around 1947.


Glass Packer, 1947:
"Another Returnee is the D'Orsay fragrance Duo D'Orsay. Bottled in the diamond-cut D'Orsay flacon, it is encased in lovely box of new design, white with the D'Orsay crest. Both perfume and eau de toilette are available in this fragrance."
















The company was resurrected in 1993 by Groupe Marignan and in 1995 new fragrances were put on the market under the direction of Claude Broll and Alain Lagier.

Parfums D'Orsay was revived in 2007 by Marie Huet. D'Orsay's website claims that Count D'Orsay dabbled in perfumery himself and created various personal formulas starting in 1830 and manufactured exclusively for his female friends til his death in 1852. Reportedly, these formulas were carefully preserved and were then issued in 1908 with the founding of the D'Orsay perfumery.




Biography of Count d'Orsay

He was born in Paris, the second son of Albert Gaspard Grimaud, a Bonapartist general. His mother was Eleanore de Franquemont, an illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Württemberg and the Italian adventuress Anne Franchi, and his elder brother died in infancy.


In 1821, he entered the French army of the restored Bourbon monarchy (against his own Bonapartist tendencies), attending the lavish coronation of George IV of the United Kingdom in London that year (staying until 1822) and serving as a Garde du Corps of Louis XVIII. While in London he formed an acquaintance with Charles Gardiner, 1st Earl of Blessington and Marguerite, Countess of Blessington, which quickly ripened into intimacy. William Benemann in his book "Men of Paradise" is of the conclusion that there is evidence of a sexual relation between Alfred and both The Earl and the Countess. The following year the couple visited him where he was stationed at Valence on the Rhone, and at the invitation of the earl he accompanied the party on their tour through Italy.


In the spring of 1823, he met Lord Byron at Genoa, and the published correspondence of the poet at this period contains numerous references to d'Orsay's gifts and accomplishments, and to his peculiar relationship to the Blessington family. A diary which d'Orsay had kept during his visit to London in 1821–1822 was submitted to Byron's inspection, and was much praised by him for the knowledge of men and manners and the keen faculty of observation it displayed.
 

On 1 December 1827, Count d'Orsay married Lady Harriet Gardiner, a girl of fifteen, the daughter of Lord Blessington by his previous wife. The union, if it rendered his connection with the Blessington family less ostensibly equivocal than before, was in other respects an unhappy one, and a legal separation took place in 1838, at which Lady Harriet paid over £100,000 to his creditors (though even this did not cover all his debts) in exchange for d'Orsay giving up all claims to the Blessington estate.


After the death of Lord Blessington, which occurred in 1829, the widowed countess returned to England, accompanied by d'Orsay, and her home, first at Seamore Place, then at Gore House, soon became a resort of the fashionable literary and artistic society of London, which found an equal attraction in host and in hostess. The count's charming manner, brilliant wit, and artistic faculty were accompanied by benevolent moral qualities, which endeared him to all his associates. His skill as a painter and sculptor was shown in numerous portraits and statuettes representing his friends, which were marked by great vigour and truthfulness, if wanting in the finish that can only be reached by persistent discipline.


It was at Gore House that d'Orsay met Benjamin Disraeli and Edward Bulwer-Lytton, themselves young men of fashion who dabbled in the arts. D'Orsay and Disraeli were good friends in the 1830s–to the point that Disraeli asked d'Orsay to be his second, when it appeared that Disraeli would fight a duel with Morgan O'Connell, the son of Irish agitator Daniel O'Connell. D'Orsay declined, on the grounds of being a foreigner, and Disraeli went with Henry Baillie, a mutual friend. The character of Count Alcibiades de Mirabel in Disraeli's novel Henrietta Temple was modeled on d'Orsay, to whom the book was dedicated.


The comte's and Marguerite's pyramidal tomb at Chambourcy (Yvelines, France)


Count d'Orsay had been from his youth a zealous Bonapartist, and one of the most frequent guests at Gore House was Prince Louis Napoleon. In 1849 the count went bankrupt, and the establishment at Gore House being broken up, he went to Paris. Lady Blessington sold almost all her possessions and followed him there, but died a few weeks after her arrival, leaving him heartbroken. He endeavored to provide for himself by painting portraits. He was deep in the counsels of the prince president (who had also returned to Paris from exile, and been elected president the year before d'Orsay arrived), but relations between them were less cordial after Louis's 1851 coup d'état (in which he became Emperor Napoleon III), of which the count had expressed his strong disapproval.


Reluctant to entrust d'Orsay with any affairs of state, Napoleon III finally offered him the position of director of the Beaux-Arts. Within a few months of the appointment, however, D'Orsay contracted a spinal infection, of which he died on 4 August 1852 in the house of his sister Ida, duchesse de Gramont, at Chambourcy, just a few days after his appointment had been officially announced. He had designed a pyramidal grey stone tomb for Lady Blessington at Chambourcy, and he too was buried in it, with Napoleon III among the mourners at the funeral.




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