Figure 1.--.This is a portrait of Jacques-Louis de Pourtalès and his Family, painted in 1784 by Dutch artist L.F.G. van der Puyl. Pourtalès (1722–1814) was a Swiss banker, entrepreneur, and plantation owner in Granada. We see see three of their four sons.. There were also two girls. Notice the bright colors the boys are wearing. Also notice that the younger boys wear long pants and the older boy and father wear knee breeches. Click on the vimage to see nother portrait of the family with at least one of the two girls, we think a few years erlier.

The Pourtalés family was one of the many Huguenot families scattered across Protestant Europe. Jacques-Louis de Pourtalès (1722-1814), was a plantation owner, entrepreneur and private banker. His father had fled religious persecution in France. The process spread French technology and distributed a very industrious people across Europe. It was huge loss to France..Jut the loss to the French was incalculable. (For some reason the Huguenots had dominated the French Navy.) Jacques-Louis' father fled to Lyon and then to then in Geneva and finally Neuchâte in western Switzerland. His mother's family also fled from France and settled in Neuchâtel and set up a calico printing works. Jacques-Louis had six more siblings. As a result of hi father's extended absence, he grew up with his maternal grandparents who had a strictly Protestant spirit. As a boy of 14 years Jacques-Louis traveled to London to learn about trading textiles. This was the beginning of a trading career focusing on cambric that made him a fortune. He lost much of wealth during the Napoleonic era which cut land-locked Switzerland off from the international trading network, but made it back after the fall of Napoleon (1815). Switzerland off from his father, who was a partner in the wholesale firm Pourtalès, Simons et Cie dealing in cambric. This early experience in an international trading city laid the foundation for his later career and opened perspectives for him in the trading world. The family had two daughters and four sons, of whom only Louis, James-Alexandre and Frédéric (1779-1863) reached adulthood.

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Created: 3:29 PM 6/28/2026
Last updated: 3:30 PM 6/28/2026