The Renoir Girls
A Hidden History of Art, War & Betrayal

Quotes

‘[A] thrilling book . . .The Renoir Girls is much more than an engrossing family saga about lucky people brought low. Its real subject is antisemitism, which starts as a background whisper and becomes a terrifying roar. This makes it essential reading for our times’ 

‘Profoundly moving . . . With consummate skill and impressive research, Ostler tells the story. Reading the early chapters, when the Cahen d’Anvers family were at the pinnacle of Belle Epoque high life, I felt I was inside an Impressionist painting, dazzled by colour and fun’

‘[A] story that is at once intimate and expansive, rooted in the particulars of a single family, yet reaching outward to encompass some of the defining events of modern European history. In the end, The Renoir Girls is less about a painting than about what lies beyond its frame: the passage of time, the shifting of identities, the sudden and often catastrophic turns of history’

‘[An] evocative work of narrative history . . . Miss Ostler has scoured family papers to add rich and telling detail to the sweep of her story . . . As befits such an involving and wide-ranging family saga, she even keeps a big twist in reserve for the very end’ 

‘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’

‘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’

‘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’

‘In this companion piece to Edmund de Waal’s The Hare With Amber Eyes . . . Ostler, a former Tatler editor, provides a must-read record of fin de siècle Paris, including the fabulous outfits which will thrill every reader with even a soupçon of interest in clothes . . . [a] gripping tale of antisemitism and war’

‘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

‘I adore Ostler’s evocative and lyrical writing that takes us through pivotal, changing times in history – from the Belle Époque to the world wars – with revelations (and beautiful writing) on art, family and scandal. Ostler’s deeply researched, scholarly but entertaining book, is underpinned by a revelatory secret that will leave you gripped to the end’ -- Katy Hessel, author of The Story of Art Without Men

‘Through the drama of a single painting, Catherine Ostler has brought together a compelling work of family biography, Belle Époque French culture, and history of art set against the terror of world war and generational poison of antisemitism. Drawing on new archival research and family testimony, this is both a rich, global history and intense, personal chronicle all flowing from Renoir’s sublime portrait’ -- Dr Tristram Hunt, Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum 

‘From Paris to London to São Paulo, The Renoir Girls is a spellbinding journey into the dark heart of Europe's twentieth century and into the sadness and secrets of one family in particular. With formidable research and beautiful prose, Catherine Ostler delights and devastates in equal measure. You will never look at these portraits the same way again’ -- James McAuley, author of The House of Fragile Things

‘An exceptionally profound and eye-opening book that educates us – in the most haunting and compelling way – about art, France, religion, class, gender and how the world came to be modern. Like all the greatest books, this is a story of endurance, tragedy, kindness and love. Hugely enjoyable, beautifully written, skilful, deep and kind’ -- Alain de Botton

‘The Renoir Girls is a helter-skelter ride from the glittering, high society whirl of Paris in the mid-nineteenth century to the bleak gates of Auschwitz and the Nazi death camps a century later. The connecting link is deftly provided by Renoir’s vivid portrait of two privileged children, ‘Pink and Blue’, as they journey through time from the exclusive, golden world of Proust to the dark ruins of Hitler’s Europe’ -- Rick Stroud, author of I Am Not Afraid of Looking into the Rifles