Born: 15 October 1929, Portugal
Died: 15 August 2007
Country most active: United States, France
Also known as: NA
Maria “São” Schlumberger (née da Concerção Diniz) was an American fashion and art patron and collector. She studied psychology at New York’s Columbia University, and then worked as a counselor for juvenile delinquents in Lisbon, before studying art at the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon).
In 1961, the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon awarded her a fellowship to research children’s programs in New York museums.
In Paris, she lived in an 18th-century hôtel particulier (a large townhouse) in the Rue Férou, restored by French architect Pierre Barbe, with interior design by Valerian Rybar in “a provocative mix of classic and modern styles”.
Schlumberger particularly liked the work of artists Mark Rothko, Robert Rauschenberg, and Roy Lichtenstein. Her portrait was painted by Andy Warhol and Salvador Dalí, who also designed her an elaborate pearl-and-emerald necklace which she often wore.
She was a patron to the fashion designer John Galliano, and let him use her empty 17th-century Paris hotel particulier for his autumn 1994 show.