The Renoir Girls

‘[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’ – Kathryn Hughes * The Times, Book of the Week *‘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’ – Ysenda Maxtone-Graham * Daily Mail, Book of the Week *‘[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’ – Guy Walters * Independent *‘[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’ – Michael Prodger * Country Life *‘The final reveal – which makes one gasp – only underlines the artifice of the world Ostler has portrayed, where almost limitless wealth, privilege and familial connections proved in the end no match for the overwhelming evil of anti-Semitism’ – Ariane Bankes * Spectator *‘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‘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‘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

Catherine Ostler is an author and journalist. She has served as Editor-in-Chief of Tatler, the Evening Standard’s ES magazine, and Editor of The Times Weekend. Her writing has also appeared in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Telegraph, the Financial Times, and Vogue.

Ostler read English at Oxford University and is a co-founder of Cliveden Literary Festival. Her first book, The Duchess Countess, was published in 2021 and received critical acclaim.