Irene: Renoir's poor little rich girl

I have a replica of a Renoir painting called Irène Cahen d'Anvers. It’s an artagraph , a process where a computer scans the original and reproduces it down to the brushstrokes on canvas. Her angelic face and verdure background speak of happy, carefree times, of childish games and a loving fulfilled existence surrounded by beauty. For the better part of a decade she has personified idyllic existence on my wall. And during that time I have idealized her life as having been as beautiful as her portrait. So certain was I that her story was beautiful that I researched her life. Now I wish I hadn’t.

The painting is simply signed Renoir ’80, but it is famous enough that I knew her name before she was mine. Irene was 11 years old when she posed for Renoir and the portrait was completed in two sittings. She was the daughter of Louis Cahen d'Anvers a wealthy Jewish banker born in Belgium in 1837, died in Paris in 1922. Her mother was Louise de Morpurgo (1845-1926). Irene had two brothers Robert (1871-1931), and Charles (1879-1957), and two sisters Elisabeth (1874-1944) and Alice (1876-1965).

Renoir's Blue et Rose - Irene's sisters Elisabeth and Alice

Renoir painted a portrait of Irene and another of her sisters, that painting is now known as Rose et Blue and also as les demoiselles Cahen d'Anvers. And I think is equally famous and equally priceless as Irene. Elisabeth is blue and Alice is rose. When Renoir completed the canvases the Cahen d'Anvers hated them passionately and relegated them to the service area of the private hotel in Paris they called home. To add insult to injury they were late in paying Renoir for his services. A price had not been agreed upon before the work was completed and Renoir received 1,500 francs for the portraits. Even though it was more money than he had ever seen, it was significantly less than normally paid by this class of client for such services.

Irene's 1st husband  Moïse de Camondo

Irene grew up in that wealthy aristocratic environment and when she was 19, on October 15, 1891 she married Moïse de Camondo. Who had arrived in Paris from the Ottoman Empire (Trurkey) at the age of 9 with his father (Nissim) and uncle (Abraham-Behor) who came to develop the family’s financial affairs in Europe. They were extremely wealthy bankers. Camondo was an avid 18 century French art collector, a style very much in vogue which probably explains the Irene’s family’s disdain for Renoir’s work.

Irene and her husband have two children. Nissim, named after his grandfather, is born in 1892, and Beatrice, born in 1894. Irene leaves her husband in 1902 and he keeps the children. She converts to Christianity and marries Count Charles Sampieri in 1903, who apparently headed her husband’s stables. That marriage also ends in 1924.

Beatrice and her brother Nissim the year he died

Irene’s son is a fighter pilot in WWI, and in September 1917, at the age of 25, he dies in an air combat at Meurthe-et-Moselle. When her ex-husband dies in 1935, most of his fortune goes to his (and Irene’s) daughter, Beatrice. He also bequeaths his Paris home and all of his art collection to establish the Musée Nassim de Camondo in honor of his son. Beatrice, Irene’s only surviving child marries Léon Reinach and has two children Fanny born in 1920 and Bertrand, born in 1923.

WWII starts and Europe is no longer safe for Jews. Irene’s sister Elizabeth (the one in the blue ribbon) had converted to Christianity 50 years prior, but her Jewish roots are discovered and she dies somewhere on her way to Auschwitz. Irene’s daughter, Beatrice and her two grandchildren die in Auschwitz in 1943, as does Beatrice’s husband. The Camondos, or the Reincach as they were, arrived in Auschwitz on November 25, 1944 and were immediately gassed along with 914 other people. Irene’s marriage to Charles Sampieri, her name change in 1903 and early conversion to Christianity apparently kept her safe from the Nazis and spared her the fate of her family. She spent the war years living very simply and quietly in a Parisian apartment.


In 1946, Renoir’s painting’ La petite fille au ruban bleu’ (little girl in a blue ribbon) is recognized by the model who sat for it. Irene manages to reclaim the stolen painting she hated and in 1949 she sells it at a Parisian gallery to Georg Bürhle. Today it can be seen at the Bürhle Foundation in Zurich.

Irene was the sole heir of her daughter’s estate. She inherited the Camondo fortune. She lived to be 91 and some say she squandered the entire fortune. I say that she simply discovered early in her life that money isn’t worth much and she spent the rest of her days spending it in search of some measure of happiness. She died in 1963.

p.s Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born 25 February 1841 and died 3 December 1919

Irene's family