Christopher de Paus
Christopher Paus | |
|---|---|
| Count of Paus | |
Christopher Paus (painting, Herresta) in the court dress of a papal chamberlain, in Spanish Renaissance style | |
| Coat of arms | |
| Born | 10 September 1862 Christiania, Norway |
| Died | 10 September 1943 Skodsborg, Denmark |
| Buried | Vår Frelsers gravlund |
| Noble family | Paus |
| Father | Major Johan Altenborg Paus |
| Mother | Agnes Tostrup |
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Count Christopher de Paus (10 September 1862 – 10 September 1943) was a Norwegian-born aristocrat, papal courtier and philanthropist.
A member of the Paus family—the name means pope—he was heir to the Norwegian timber firm Tostrup & Mathiesen and inherited a fortune from his grandfather, timber magnate Christopher Tostrup. From the 1870s, he spent much of his life in Rome, where he converted to Catholicism. He was appointed as a papal chamberlain by Pope Benedict XV in 1921 and conferred the title of count by Pope Pius XI in 1923. He was a prominent benefactor of museums and the Catholic Church. He donated the Paus collection of classical sculpture that now forms part of the National Museum of Norway. Paus was considered "the founder of the National Gallery's antiquities collection" by Harry Fett.
Christopher Paus, a close relative of playwright Henrik Ibsen, was the only member of Ibsen’s family who visited him during his decades-long exile. In 1923 he bought the estate Herresta in Sweden which is still owned by descendants of his cousin Herman Paus, who was married to a granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy.