Unveiling the Secret Lives Behind Renoir’s Legacy: Art, Betrayal, and War Exposed
The painting “takes us by the hand and leads us into that gilded life, when flourishing, flamboyant Paris was the heart of the civilized world.”
But Ostler is not just breathlessly chronicling the luxe frippery of the Belle Epoque, where life for the rich was “not only adequate, but positively sumptuous.” A world where lovers have secret meetings in the hothouses of botanical gardens, where supper tables are “decorated with diamonds and piles and piles of macaroons.” What initially captured the author’s attention was learning of the fate of Elisabeth, who would die in Auschwitz six decades after Renoir painted her portrait, along with relatives, friends, and over a million more.
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