Explore the History of this artwork, Portrait of Irène Cahen d'Anvers.
In the 1870s-80s, Renoir frequently painted portraits for the families of the Parisian Jewish community. Through the collector Charles Ephrussi, proprietor of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Renoir met Louis Cahen d'Anvers. The Cahen d'Anvers family was one of the wealthiest Jewish banking families in Paris. In 1880, Louis Cahen d'Anvers commissioned two portraits of his three daughters, the eldest of whom was Irène. The younger daughters Alice and Elizabeth would become the subject of a later painting by Renoir, now commonly known as Pink and Blue.
The Portrait of Irène Cahen d'Anvers, also commonly called Little Irene, is considered today as one of Renoir's masterpieces. At the time, for an unknown reason, Louis was so dissatisfied with the painting that he hung it in the servants' quarters and delayed Renoir's payment of 1500 francs.In 1883, the painting was first exhibited in the first exhibition dedicated exclusively to Renoir, held in Paul Durand-Ruel's Boulevard des Capucines gallery. In 1910 the painting was purchased by the wealthy Camondo family, into which Irène had married in 1891. 
After the fall of France, the painting was looted from Château de Chambord by the Nazis. Like many other important pieces of European art, it became a part of Hermann Göring's personal collection, Göring later traded the painting with Gustav Rochlitz for a Florentine Tondo. In 1946, Portrait of Irène Cahen d'Anvers resurfaced and was exhibited in Paris as one of the "French masterpieces found in Germany". The painting along with dozens of other artwork stolen by the Nazis was later acquired by Emil Georg Bührle, a Swiss industrialist, art collector of German origin and CEO of the armaments company Oerlikon, a wartime supplier of the German military. The painting remains part of the E.G. Bührle Collection in Zürich.
In 2014, it appeared in the movie The Monuments Men as one of the pieces of art saved by the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program. In 2018, Little Irène gained popularity in Japan when it was exhibited in the National Art Center in Tokyo, as part of a series on Impressionist artworks on loan from the E.G. Bührle Collection.
Château de Chambord E.G. Bührle Collection Gustav Rochlitz Nazis The Monuments Men Paul Durand-Ruel Emil Georg Bührle Hermann Göring Zürich Tondo Boulevard des Capucines Impressionist Camondo family Pink and Blue Louis Cahen d'Anvers Charles Ephrussi Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program the National Art Center fall of France Gazette des Beaux-Arts Paris Oerlikon