Focus on this artwork and discuss the Irène Cahen d’Anvers.
Irène Cahen d’Anvers (1872–1963), the subject of this painting, was 8 years old at the time of the portrait. The eldest daughter of the wealthy Jewish French banker Count Louis Cahen d'Anvers, she married Count Moïse de Camondo in 1891, aged 19. They separated in August 1897 after her affair with de Camondo's stable master, Count Charles Sampieri (1863-1930), whom she would later marry and divorce. 
Irène had two children with de Camondo, Nissim and Béatrice. During World War I Nissim became a fighter pilot of the French Air Force and was killed in action in 1917 over Lorraine. In 1935, Moïse de Camondo bequeathed his Parisian mansion, at 63 rue de Monceau, including its contents and a major collection of art, to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs to be used to create the Musée Nissim de Camondo in honour of his and Irène's son. During World War II, Béatrice, her ex-husband Leon Reinach and their two children were murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz because of their Jewish ancestry. Irène spent the war in hiding in Paris (apartment rue de la Tour) using her Italian name and passport. As her daughter Béatrice's sole inheritor, Irène received the large de Camondo fortune, that she would squander in the casinos of the French Riviera. Irène also had a daughter with Sampieri, Claude Germaine (1903-1995), who would marry the French fighter ace and race car driver André Dubonnet. Irène lived until 1963 and died in Paris, aged 91.
World War I French Air Force Nissim Musée Nissim de Camondo Moïse de Camondo Auschwitz Nazis Musée des Arts Décoratifs Nissim de Camondo André Dubonnet Louis Cahen d'Anvers Béatrice Leon Reinach Lorraine Paris World War II