George Sand

A carte-de-visite portrait of French author George Sand (1804-1876).

Her real name was Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin and she was born in Paris to a father of aristocratic lineage and a commoner mother. She was raised largely by her grandmother at the family estate, Nohant, in the region of Berry, a setting later used for many of her novels. In 1822, she married Baron M. Casimir Dudevant and bore him two children. After nine years of marriage, the couple legally separated. She was later linked romantically with Alfred de Musset, Franz Liszt and Frédéric Chopin. Her first novel Indiana (1832) was a plea for women’s right to independence. In 1848 she retired to Nohant, the château in central France where she was raised.

Photographed by Nadar of Paris.