The Renoir Girls: A Hidden History of Art, War and Betrayal

Catherine Ostler in conversation with Dominic Green.

In 1881, Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted two young sisters from a prominent Jewish banking family in Paris. His portrait, Pink and Blue, captures the elegance and confidence of a world in which Jewish families like the Cahen d’Anvers were central to culture, finance and society at the height of the Belle Époque.

But beneath the glamour, antisemitism was already on the rise.

In The Renoir Girls, historian and journalist Catherine Ostler tells the remarkable true story behind this iconic painting, and the Jewish family at its heart. Drawing on letters, diaries and new research, she traces their journey from privilege and influence to the upheavals of the Dreyfus Affair, the trauma of two World Wars, and the collapse of a European Jewish world.

What begins as a portrait of beauty becomes a deeper story about belonging, identity and the fragility of acceptance.

Catherine Ostler is a historian, journalist and former editor-in-chief of Tatler. Her previous book, The Duchess Countess, was widely acclaimed and named a Book of the Year across multiple publications, and has been optioned for television.

Copies of The Renoir Girls: A Hidden History of Art, War and Betrayal (Simon & Schuster, £30, hardback) will be available to buy at a special discounted price with your ticket.