New book traces the tragic history of Renoir’s child subjects

A new book by author and historian Catherine Ostler, titled The Renoir Girls: A Hidden History of Art, War & Betrayal, explores the lives of Alice and Elisabeth Cahen d’Anvers, the two sisters depicted in Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s 1881 painting, Pink and Blue.

The portrait was commissioned when the girls were four and six years old, capturing them in their family home in Paris. The sisters were born into a prominent French-Jewish banking family, known as part of the haute Juiverie, and were raised in an environment of significant wealth and social influence.

Ostler’s research documents the stark contrast between the sisters' gilded childhoods and the later impact of the Holocaust on their lives. Despite their high social standing and connections to cultural figures of the time, the family could not escape the rising antisemitism and political instability that eventually led to the murder of one of the sisters at Auschwitz.

Reflecting on the project, Ostler noted that she aimed to fill in the history between the girls' privileged upbringing and their tragic fates. She described her goal as conjuring the atmosphere of their early lives, characterized by luxury and a sense of fragile security, while documenting the eventual betrayal of that world.

The book, which was released on July 14, 2026, was the subject of a report published by Hyperallergic on Nov. 6, 2026.