The Renoir Girls

A Hidden History of Art, War & Betrayal

De: Catherine Ostler

‘Remarkable and haunting . . . a revelation’ Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes

‘A dazzling achievement, heartbreaking, glamourous, elegiac, revelatory and utterly gripping’ Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The World: A Family History of Humanity

‘Truly beautiful and melodic . . . a joy to read’ Hallie Rubenhold, author of The Five and Story of a Murder

CHOSEN AS A BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2026 BY THE TIMES


An astonishing true story of splendour, scandal and tragedy in Golden Age Paris.

In 1881, Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted two young sisters from a Jewish banking dynasty at their home in Paris’s grand 8th arrondissement. Pink and Blue, a portrait of Elisabeth and Alice Cahen d’Anvers, captures a fleeting moment of innocence and beauty, and today it is one of Renoir’s most celebrated works. His portrait evokes the glamour of the Belle Époque: days at the races, nights at the opera, sun-soaked chateaux, brilliant salons filled with art, music and conversation. Paris at its most dazzling.

Yet beneath the glittering surface was a surging current of resentment. Renoir’s Impressionist masterpiece, radiant with light and colour, hides both a family secret and the tensions of an era poised for rupture. The same society that was illuminated by progress and culture was cast into shadow by division, prejudice and rising antisemitism. The Cahen d’Anvers, prominent patrons of this Golden Age, would come to embody both its glory and its tragedy.

In The Renoir Girls, Catherine Ostler paints a vivid and immersive portrait of intimate individual lives against the vast sweep of a changing Europe. Drawing on letters, diaries and exclusive new research, Ostler uncovers revelatory truths about a family at the heart of modern Europe’s struggles. From the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War to the Dreyfus Affair and the devastation of two world wars, this is a powerful story of love, courage and identity in conflict with the forces of history.

Reseñas de la Crítica

‘This is a remarkable and haunting book, bringing the lives of the three young Jewish sisters, painted by Renoir in fin-de-siècle Paris, into extraordinary focus. It is a revelation’ (Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes)

‘The Renoir Girls is a dazzling achievement, heartbreaking, glamourous, elegiac, revelatory and utterly gripping. It is simultaneously a portrait of Belle Époque Paris, the chronicle of a powerful French family in a world of palaces, estates and the late 19th-century high society of grand aristocrats and bankers, a story of great love, forbidden affairs and family secrets, a biography of Renoir and his artistic milieu, a history of France from Second Empire to World War Two, and the story of French Jews from the court of Napoleon III to the killing camps of the Holocaust – and at its heart are the extraordinary lives of three sisters and a famous painting. A tale with echoes of Proust and The Hare with Amber Eyes, it is deeply researched, beautifully written, delicious, haunting and horribly timely’ (Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The World: A Family History of Humanity )

‘The Renoir Girls is magnificent: a grand sweep of a book, an epic told through the lives of the Cahen d’Anvers, their triumphs and tragedies, their romances and passions. Leading the reader inside a glorious gilded world, Ostler introduces us to a fascinating set of outsiders, both the wealthy Jewish families and the artists. Her writing, truly beautiful and melodic, is a joy to read’ (Hallie Rubenhold, author of The Five and Story of a Murder)

‘With The Renoir Girls, Catherine Ostler brilliantly exposes the darkness and latent violence beneath the glamour of Belle Époque Paris – revealing how antisemitism, social fracture, and the approaching catastrophe of war quietly undermines the surface elegance of a well-known painting’ (Dame Hannah Rothschild DBE CBE)

‘Meticulously researched and beautifully written, this engrossing book takes you straight to the heart of Belle Époque France, a world of grace, wit and elegance. No-one could know, as they conducted their love affairs and enjoyed their waltzes, how close they were dancing to the seething pits of murderous racial hatred’ (Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny )

‘An exquisite portrait of splendour, sacrifice and suffering. What begins with a single Renoir painting of two young girls unfolds into an elegant, poignant sweep of 20th-century European history. Ostler’s masterful prose and groundbreaking research creates a book with the richness of a novel and the authority of deep scholarship’ (Natalie Livingstone, author of The Women of Rothschild: The Untold Story of the World's Most Famous Dynasty)