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A Hyperallergic review examines Catherine Ostler’s The Renoir Girls, which follows Alice and Elisabeth Cahen d’Anvers, the sisters depicted in Renoir’s 1881 painting, and their family’s history. The book links their privileged life in Paris with rising antisemitism, Nazi persecution and the later histories of Renoir’s portraits.
A Hyperallergic book review examines Catherine Ostler’s The Renoir Girls, which traces the lives of Alice and Elisabeth Cahen d’Anvers, the sisters shown in Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s 1881 painting Pink and Blue, through the family’s privileged life in France and the Holocaust. The account places the famous portrait alongside the history of a Jewish family whose wealth and efforts to belong in French society did not protect its members from Nazi persecution.
Renoir painted Pink and Blue, the Misses Cahen d’Anvers in 1881, depicting four-year-old Alice and six-year-old Elisabeth standing together in formal clothes. Their parents were Louis Cahen d’Anvers, an Antwerp-born Jewish banker, and Louise, a prominent salonnière. Ostler’s book also follows their older sister Irène, whose portrait, La Petite Irène, Renoir painted in 1880.
As described in the review, Louise’s salon brought together artists, writers and members of the Catholic aristocracy. Art collector and critic Charles Ephrussi arranged for Renoir to paint the girls; he was suspected of being Alice’s biological father, the review says. That detail is presented as a suspicion, not an established fact. Ostler uses the family’s social world to follow the sisters’ marriages, religious choices and changing circumstances.
The review recounts how antisemitism persisted despite legal equality for French Jews. It describes the Dreyfus Affair, which ran from 1894 to 1906, as a period of intense national division. Under Nazi occupation, the family faced persecution: the review reports that four relatives died in concentration camps, including Elisabeth, who was betrayed while hiding and died in or on the way to Auschwitz in 1944.
The Family History Behind the Portrait
The story matters because it places a widely admired painting within the longer history of its subjects’ family, rather than treating the sisters only as figures in a Renoir composition. The review describes how wealth, cultural influence and patriotic ties failed to shield the family from antisemitism and later persecution. That contrast challenges any simple assumption that social standing or assimilation offered safety.
The portraits also have distinct histories. Pink and Blue is now held by the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, where the review says it is among the museum’s most popular works. La Petite Irène was looted by the Nazis, later restituted to Irène and subsequently bought by Swiss arms dealer Emil Georg Bührle. It is now on view at the Kunsthaus Zürich, according to the review. The paintings’ differing paths connect the family’s story to questions of wartime looting, restitution and how museums present works with histories of persecution.
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Parisian Society and Rising Antisemitism
The Cahen d’Anvers family occupied a place in the Jewish elite of fin-de-siècle Paris. Ostler’s account, as summarized by Hyperallergic, sets their social prominence against a France marked by inequality, political instability and persistent anti-Jewish prejudice. Renoir himself complained to a friend about Louis’s payment for the commission, using an antisemitic remark quoted in the review. Edmond de Goncourt, a diarist and visitor to Louise’s salon, also expressed anti-Jewish hostility.
The Dreyfus Affair sharpened these tensions. Jewish French army officer Alfred Dreyfus was framed for treason, and the case divided the country from 1894 to 1906. The review says the Cahen d’Anvers and people close to them supported the Dreyfusard side. The family’s later history unfolded against the Nazi occupation and the Holocaust, when Jewish identity exposed people to state persecution regardless of their earlier social standing.
““I really give up with the Jews,””
— Pierre-Auguste Renoir, in a letter quoted by the review
Details the Review Leaves Open
The source is a book review, not a full account of every family member’s fate or the documentation behind each episode. It does not establish whether Ephrussi was Alice’s biological father; it reports only that he was suspected of being so. The review also does not provide a publication date for Ostler’s book or a complete list of the four family members said to have died in concentration camps.
Some details of the paintings’ ownership histories are summarized rather than fully documented in the supplied material. The review says La Petite Irène was looted, restituted to Irène and later bought by Bührle, but does not give the dates or transaction records. Those specifics should not be inferred from the summary alone.
Where the Portraits Are Now
The supplied report does not announce a new exhibition, publication event or institutional decision. It identifies the current locations of the two paintings: Pink and Blue at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand and La Petite Irène at the Kunsthaus Zürich. Readers seeking further detail can consult Ostler’s book and the museums’ records for fuller accounts of the family and the works’ ownership histories.
Any future developments concerning the paintings, their interpretation or provenance are not stated in the source material. The immediate development is the review itself, which brings renewed attention to the people behind Renoir’s portrait and to the family history that the image alone cannot convey.
Key Questions
Who are the girls in Renoir’s Pink and Blue?
The painting depicts Alice and Elisabeth Cahen d’Anvers, aged four and six when Renoir painted it in 1881, according to the review.
What is Catherine Ostler’s The Renoir Girls about?
As described by Hyperallergic, the book follows the Cahen d’Anvers sisters and their family from elite Parisian society through rising antisemitism and the Holocaust.
Where is Pink and Blue displayed?
The review says Pink and Blue is at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand and is one of the museum’s popular works.
What happened to Renoir’s portrait of Irène?
La Petite Irène was looted by the Nazis, restituted to Irène and later bought by Emil Georg Bührle, according to the review. It is now on view at the Kunsthaus Zürich.
Did the Cahen d’Anvers family escape Nazi persecution?
No. The review reports that four family members died in concentration camps, including Elisabeth, who died in or on the way to Auschwitz in 1944.
Source: hyperallergic.com
