Jane Engelhard
| Jane Engelhard | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Marie Antoinette Jeanne Reiss August 12, 1917 Qingdao, China |
| Died | February 29, 2004 (aged 86) Nantucket, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Philanthropist |
| Spouse(s) |
Fritz Mannheimer (m. 1939; d. 1939) Charles W. Engelhard Jr. (m. 1947; d. 1971) |
| Children | Annette de la Renta (<abbr=born>b. 1939) |
Jane Engelhard (August 12, 1917 – February 29, 2004), born Marie Antoinette Jeanne Reiss, was an American philanthropist, best known for her marriage to billionaire industrialist Charles W. Engelhard Jr., as well as her donation of an elaborate 18th-century Neapolitan crêche to the White House in 1967. She was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1972.
Born in Qingdao, China, she was a daughter of Hugo Reiss (1879–?), a prominent Shanghai-based, German-born Jewish businessman who was an executive at his family's British fabric-and-small-arms wholesale firm, G. Reiss & Co. Ltd. and served as Brazil's consul in Shanghai. Her mother, Ignatia Mary Valerie Murphy (1891/93-1965), was an Irish Roman Catholic native of San Francisco, California.
She had two sisters by her parents' marriage: Barry Jeanette Reiss-Brian (1914–1970), and Huguette Madeleine Reiss-Brian (1916–1994, married Major Rupert Charles Frederick Gerard, then Lawrence Hoguet; mother of 5th Baron Gerard of Bryn).
Her mother later married French citizen Guy Louis Albert Brian (1891–) and had two daughters: Marie-Brigitte Brian (b. 1928, Countess Bernard de La Rochefoucauld) and Patricia "Bébé" Brian (b. 1930, Madame Jacques Bemberg). Her maiden surname has been variously been published as Reis, Reiss, Pinto Reis, Pinto-Reis Brian and Reiss-Brian.
All five daughters were raised as Catholics, with the three Reiss girls spending their infancy and early childhood in Shanghai, China. After Mary Reiss divorced Hugo Reiss and married Guy Brian, the family lived in Paris, and Jane graduated from the Convent des Oiseaux, a fashionable Catholic school in Neuilly, France; its alumni included the future Vietnamese empress Nam Phương.
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