Maecenas

[…] thou art his dear and loving friend, good and gracious Lord and Master, his Maecenas.

[O]ur young gentleman was shewn into another room, where half a dozen of his fellow-adherents waited for their Mæcenas, who in a few minutes appeared, with a most gracious aspect, received the compliments of the morning, and sat down to breakfast, in the midst of them, without any further ceremony.

The government […] maintained one of the largest armies in Europe; it developed what became, by the 1780s, a navy as big as the British; and it played the role of cultural Maecenas.

The contemporary art space created within the Palais de Tokyo (also home to the Paris Museum of Modern Art) is a pretty sad example of government as Maecenas.