“In hosting a salon on a jour fixe, the Steins followed a venerable institution for the marketing of high culture, which had originated in their adopted France in seventeenth century. Many salons developed into exclusionary enclaves for the upper classes, but they also functioned as a social equalizer. Private spaces that wielded influence beyond the drawing room, they mixed the sexes and social classes, creating new elites based on talent rather than birthright.”—“Saturday Evenings at the Steins” by Emily Braun, included in the Steins Collect - Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde.
