"[5] Sarah and Michael lived in conventional bourgeois comfort as they accumulated paintings and other objects with as much enthusiasm as Leo and Gertrude Stein.
The couple concentrated almost exclusively on the work of Henri Matisse, beginning with their first purchase (with Leo and Gertrude) of Woman with a Hat at the Salon d'Automne in 1905.
[5] Sarah next bought Matisse's La Raie verte (The Green Line) (1905), another of the misunderstood masterpieces from the mythical Salle des Fauves.
At a time when Matisse was in considerable economic distress, Sarah made him her hero, and many of her evenings at home with guests became opportunities for her to defend the work of this man who, she was convinced, was a great master.
[8] The Steins were among the Americans who loaned Matisse's work to the 1913 Armory Show, two examples that provided the largest public in America with its first close look at a notorious modernist.
"The popular Saturday evening gatherings held at 58 rue Madame, the remodeled parish house into which the elder Steins moved soon after their arrival in Paris, ... provided Sarah with a captive audience for he disquisitions on Matisse's genius.
Sarah Stein possessed a number of qualities that predisposed her to embrace Christian Science: she was focused on her health and that of her family, open to spiritual and aesthetic experiences.
[5] It was Christian Science that bought Sarah Stein and Gabrielle de Monzie together some years before they met Le Corbusier, and their bond forged by their deep commitment to each other motivated them to form a single household.
[5] Sarah Stein shared many of Le Corbusier's conviction about modern art, about the latest health and exercise regimens, and about the importance of new technology for the contemporary society.
The Steins shared their love of art, but they also had in common a fondness for the latest theories on health and fitness, and took up stringent new diets and exercise regimens with enthusiasm.
[13] When Sarah Stein began to slowly disperse her art collection in the years before her death in 1953, Elise Stern Haas, wife of Walter A. Haas, purchased a Matisse portrait of Sarah and convinced a Chicago collector, Nathan Cummings, to acquire a similar portrait of Michael, with the understanding that both would eventually become part of the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.