The daughter of an engineer who built the train station in Chartres, Madeleine Magistry early married an heir from Toulouse, the art critic Marcellin Castaing.

[1] In the 1920s, Madeleine Castaing made her débuts as an actress in silent films; then gave up the career while being already nicknamed "the French Mary Pickford".

Shortly after their friend Modigliani's death, the Castaings made the acquaintance of Soutine at the Café de la Rotonde in Montparnasse.

[4] A few years later, in 1925, the Castaings could buy their first painting by this artist at Leopold Zborowski's, the primary art dealer of Soutine and of Modigliani, and became friends with him.

Madeleine Castaing was a friend of Erik Satie, Maurice Sachs, Blaise Cendrars, André Derain, Jean Cocteau (arranging his house in Milly-la-Forêt), Marc Chagall, Iché, Picasso, Henry Miller, Louise de Vilmorin (to whom she inspired the character of Julietta in the novel of the same name), and Francine Weisweiller (for whom she decorated the Villa Santo Sospir in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat).

Count Bruno de Caumont, artistic director at Edmond Petit, the company who edits Madeleine Castaing’s fabrics, and an expert of her style, arranged the items to be sold into decoration scenes [1].