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The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance
The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance
The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance
Audiobook10 hours

The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance

Written by Edmund de Waal

Narrated by Micheal Maloney

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

A New York Times Bestseller
An Economist Book of the Year
Costa Book Award Winner for Biography
Galaxy National Book Award Winner (New Writer of the Year Award)


Edmund de Waal is a world-famous ceramicist. Having spent thirty years making beautiful pots—which are then sold, collected, and handed on—he has a particular sense of the secret lives of objects. When he inherited a collection of 264 tiny Japanese wood and ivory carvings, called netsuke, he wanted to know who had touched and held them, and how the collection had managed to survive.

And so begins The Hare with Amber Eyes, this extraordinarily moving memoir and detective story as de Waal discovers both the origins of the netsuke and of his family, the Ephrussis, over five generations. A nineteenth-century banking dynasty in Paris and Vienna, the Ephrussis were as rich and respected as the Rothchilds. Yet by the end of the World War II, when the netsuke were hidden from the Nazis in Vienna, this collection of very small carvings was all that remained of their vast empire.

"To be handed a story as durable and exquisitely crafted as this is a rare pleasure. . . . This book is impossible to put down. You have in your hands a masterpiece." —The Sunday Times (London)

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 1, 2011
ISBN9781427215703
The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance
Author

Edmund de Waal

Edmund de Waal is an artist who has exhibited in museums and galleries around the world. His bestselling memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes, has won many prizes and has been translated into twenty-nine languages. The White Road, a journey into the history of porcelain, was published in 2015. He lives in London with his family.

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Rating: 4.006493565525384 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    At first this was hard to get involved in. The author is a great-great-something descendent of the Ephrussis, and this is story of what he learned while investigating the origins of a collection of netsuke, small Japanese baubles that were intricately carved, left to him by an uncle in Japan. The Ephrussi family came from Odessa originally, and then the patriarch split his sons between Paris and Vienna in the mid-1800s. The book first describes life in Paris, with astounding connections to artists such as Pissaro, Matisse, numerous impressionists. That was enjoyable (I love impressionism), but I wondered where the netsuke were going to enter in, as the title of the book refers to one of them – so I had expected the storyline to be more on the artifacts than artists. The author uses many French phrases and words unfamiliar to me, so it was difficult to get deeply interested. But when the author traveled to Vienna, his writing is about the daily life of his grandmother, then a young girl in an extremely wealthy household. Summer homes, dressmakers, ladies’ maids, carriage rides to the Prater… I enjoyed this section especially as I’ve been to Vienna. Now I want to return and see the former Palais Ephrussi. Finally, the netsuke are mentioned (always in their “vitrine” - a display cabinet) as play objects of the children under their mother’s supervision. The author has done an incredible amount of research to find such details; his grandmother was a major source of this information. While the Paris families did not seem to suffer from discrimination, in Vienna anti-Jewish attitudes were strong and grew stronger as described in the chapters set during WWI and WWII. The family suffered horrible financial loss at the hands of the Nazis; not just money, but priceless paintings, sculptures, and furniture were taken by Hitler and the SS. After the war, the author’s aunt – who had become an English citizen a decade before – and the remaining brothers could not bear to return to live in Vienna, and so the huge mansion on the Ringstrasse was sold for a pittance; I felt so saddened by their loss! The end of the book finally gets to the netsuke, and how they managed to (a) survive the war and (b) find their way to Japan with Iggie, the author’s uncle. That part of the writing seemed disjointed and I felt didn’t connect well with the rest of his book; he travels to Odessa to see what he can find out about the family’s origins. There is relatively little to report; perhaps it would be better kept for a companion book/booklet for interested readers. Overall, I rated this higher the more I read, so it started as a 3 but reached 4.5 for me.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    It really wasn’t about the Hare With Amber Eyes and I didn’t think much of it as a holocaust story either it wasn’t at all clear what he was trying to communicate.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    7% is am very confused byballnthe different characters and locations.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This intriguing history, which reads more like a novel, follows the fortunes and disaster befalling the wealthy Jewish Ephrussi family of Paris and Prague. Gaining their enormous riches from cornering the European grain market in the 1800s, they evade anti-Semitism by avoiding any public activities or expenditures for religious purposes. Charles, of the Paris branch, joins elite circles of writers (Proust) and painters (he actually appears in Renoir's painting, The Luncheon of the Boating Party) and acquires more than 200 netsuke (small ivory or boxwood statuettes used to clasp an obi together) during a Japonisme collecting period, and when he tires of his collection, sends them to Prague to a cousin as a wedding present. That family branch's wealth is confiscated by the Nazis and the family is scattered throughout the world. The author, a scion and a ceramicist, becomes fascinated with the netsuke, researched their history, and traveled to Japan to the home of his expat uncle Iggy to see them displayed there. There's hardly any illustrations of the netsuke, the very center of the story, in the book, which is disappointing, and more illustrations would have been preferable. The family tree in the frontpiece is very useful,
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Using some inherited netsuke as a start, the author explores the history of his Jewish banking/trading family in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The netsuke are followed as they pass from family member to family remember, are hidden, and are recovered. The author has some very interesting people in his lineage. I find it startling he had so little to go on at first, but one follows along while the amount of information he finds increases sharply. A good read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Objects, like people, have histories. Edmund de Waal's story of the netsuke he has inherited from his granduncle Iggie takes you from Paris to Vienna and from Tokyo to London with a stop in Odessa along the way. I would imagine this would be an interesting story regardless of the family involved in the hands of any skilled storyteller.

    De Waal's family, however, was anything but average. They were the Ephrussi, a fabulously rich Jewish family of bankers that began its empire in Russia in the mid-1800s. Their banks spread over Western Europe by the late-nineteenth century only to be eliminated in World War II.

    Throughout the book, de Waal interweaves stories of his great-great uncles, their cousins, and his great-grandparents with world events. And these he mixes with the everyday lives of his forebears, and the attitudes of Europeans towards the family and Jews in general.

    Like the vitrines which hold the netsuke, de Waal's book is itself a cabinet of sorts, allowing us to peek into the lives and times of the people who owned them. I found it a deeply meditative book about the human conditiobn. The Ephrussi are held up as neither great nor as victims, but as real people shaped by their time and place.

    The tragedy that visited his family is examined no more sympathetically than the Japanese are during the occupation after World War II. We are all similar, de Waal seems to be saying. We all share, in our humanity, the impulse for good and for ill. And we all suffer or benefit from these impulses from others.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Interesting read. I didn't know anything about it when I picked it up, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Like others have said, it starts slow, but then the stories start. And the stories, and they way the author tells them, draw you in.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I was recommended this book by a friend and had no idea what I was picking up to read. It is a very strange and moving account of someone trying to piece together their family history after it was all but obliterated during the war. The family were international bankers and traders with bases, at the beginning of the war, in Paris, Vienna and Odessa. By the end of the war it was all gone.

    The author then goes to visit the building that remain that used to belong to their family. I cannot even begin to imagine what that was like even though he describes it well.

    Part of this book is about how the Jews were stripped of their wealth and possessions and lives in Vienna. This process was witnessed by some Nazis and taken to Germany pretty much intact as a working model to be instituted there.

    Unlike the David Cesarani book this book is replete with emotion and feeling and rewarding read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Part family history, part European history and all centred around netsuke, small Japanese figures.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A magnificent family history of my favorite kind: big trends via individuals. Written so beautifully I assumed it was fiction for the first 50 pages. A serious achievement for anyone, nearly imcomprehensible as an amateur's first book. Bonus points for judaica, japonica, and Proust. Worth it for Anna
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a delicate work detailing rather amazing figurines in some of recent history's more nefarious climates. The settings include Paris of the Dreyfus Affair and Vienna of the early 20th Century, culminating in the terrible Anschluss of 1938.
    De Waal, himself an artist, is peering backward into time. He explores his family's success, constantly aware of the menace which surrounds such. Pieces of tiny sculptures lie at the heart of this quest. The pieces are Japanese in origin. The author explores the means by which they came to Europe and his family's possession. Events are described with wry appreciation. Despite the growing tension there is detachment at play. There are few surprises in the narrative. An appreciation for family and ancestry is galvenized as the journey returns home. As does a cultured appreciation of the diminutive masterpieces.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Not entirely my cup of tea, but a great book for book club discussion. The author's background as a potter (and not an author) makes it highly unusual, which is not a negative thing necessarily, but just made it a bit challenging to get into.

    Really good historical info, though I'd suggest combining it with a more traditional narrative such as In the Garden of Beasts.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A little all over the place. But interesting as I had never heard of the Ephrussis or netsuke.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a great family biography. The author takes a look at the story behind the netsuks of his uncle, discovering a lot about his family. On the one hand, it shows the joy of the arts which his family has been cultivating and gathering since the middle of the nineteenth century. On the other hand, it is also the great suffering of his Jewish origin.The Paris part, which plays in the middle of the 19th century until the beginning of the 20th century, shows Charles' collection. He was a great patron who knew and promoted various Impressionist artists. He was also the one who bought the Netsuk collection. I am fascinated by the relationship between Charles and Rodin, Degas, etc. It is about pictures I have already seen, how they originated and which figures who represent whom. Also in the Viennese part is told about arts, the collection family of the family goes on, especially the books of his great-grandfather.The ambivalent relationship between the countries and the Jews also plays a large part. On the one hand, they have always been used as money-makers and financiers for hundreds of years, and they were also highly esteemed on the other hand, they were the first to suffer when the nationalistic thinking of the nations tipped. This will be visible in the Paris part, but much more drastic in the Viennese part. What concerned me the most was not the expropriation itself, I have already read a lot about this, but rather not to return the stolen property or to receive it only at a ridicule price. With this kind of stolen property has not yet been made up to today pure table.The Tokyo section tells how the netsuks came into being and what they mean. It is a culture that is alien to me but fascinates.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Exceptional literary book about 5 generations of an exceptional family with an interesting history. The book began when Edward de Waal inherited a collection of 264 netsuke, tiny Japanese carvings of wood and ivory, of exceptional quality. He wanted to learn the history of the collection. His travels and the documents he found led him to Vienna, Paris, Russia and Japan. His wealthy relatives, the Ephrussis, were bankers on par with the Rothchilds, and marriage connected those families. The author makes ceramic pots at an art level.

    The story is so beautifully rendered that it's a pleasure to read and I learned many new words. It reads like a novel but is a true history and story of this remarkable family. It takes us briefly through World War II and Nazi occupation, which is where the family fortune was lost, confiscated. The netsuke collection survives because of a caring, astute maid of the family who risked her life to hide them.

    This is a remarkable book on many levels and I highly recommend it to all readers who appreciate literary works and a pleasurable history lesson.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    While this book is primarily about the provenance of a netsuke collection, it is also a biography of the author's family. De Waal's paternal grandmother was an Ephrussi, a European Jewish banking family. The family's patriarch started out as a grain merchant in Odessa. By the time of his death, one of his sons headed a Parisian branch of the Ephrussi bank while another son headed the Viennese branch of the bank. Charles Ephrussi, of the Parisian branch of the family, was not expected to join the family business since he was a younger son. He developed a passion for art, becoming an art critic and rubbing shoulders with impressionists including Renoir and literary figures including Proust. Proust's Swann is partially based on Charles Ephrussi. While the Parisian art world was captivated by Japonisme, Charles purchased a collection of netsuke – small, intricate ivory or boxwood carvings.Near the turn of the 20th century, Charles's Viennese cousin, Viktor, was getting married. The netsuke collection was Charles's wedding gift to Viktor and his bride, Emmy, who were de Waal's great-grandparents. At this point, de Waal's narrative shifts to Vienna and the history of this branch of the Ephrussi family. De Waal's grandmother, Viktor and Emmy's eldest daughter, grew up in the Palais Ephrussi on Vienna's Ring. The Ephrussis lived in the Palais through one World War, but were forced out of their home when Austria was Aryanized in 1938. While most of the family's possessions were lost, never to be recovered, the netsuke collection remained in the family and is currently in the author's possession. You'll need to read the book to find out how the netsuke were spared!This book reminds me of Thomas Harding's The House by the Lake. Both Harding and de Waal are English grandchildren of a Jewish woman whose family lost their home and possessions to the Nazis in the 1930s. The family history is a secondary focus in both books; Harding's book explores the history of a house his great-grandfather built as a vacation home, while de Waal's book explores the history of a family heirloom.The illustrated edition of this book is filled with mostly color photographs, facsimiles, and art reproductions, and photographs of the netsuke on the end papers. Without the illustrations, I probably would have been constantly pausing to Google something mentioned in the text. I recommend this edition to other readers with the caveat that it's a book best read at home. The book is printed on high-quality glossy paper, which does justice to the illustrations but makes the book too heavy to be easily portable.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    An utterly delightful mix of history and autobiography.As potter Edmond de Waal follows on the trail of the netsuke collection he covers history in many forms - art, political, family, social. And all the while painting personal pictures of his relatives, as well as his reactions.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The illustrated edition is a bonus, really allows you to picture, literally, his wonderful writing and descriptions. Beautiful book, very well written, fascinating story.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Warning - spoilers!

    De Waal traces the roots of the 264 Japanese netsuke he inherited from his great uncle, Iggie. The netsuke begin in Japan, but quickly become intertwined with the history of the Ephrussi banking family. We follow the netsuke from Paris of the Belle Epoque and its obsession with Japonisme, where they interact with characters such as Proust, Manet, and Renoir, and of course, Charles Ephrussi himself. A facinating glimpse into many of the famous Jewish banking familes of this time, and a period in history that cannot be matched for its opulence. The netsuke are gifted by Charles to the Vienna scion of the family, where we then get a glipmse of fin de siecle wealthy Vienna in the years leading up to the World War. We observe how quickly life changes from WW1 to WW2, the rise of (blatant) anti Semitism, and the rise of the Nazi party. The fortunes of the netsuke and of the Ephrussi family are forever changed - as a reader, you can see the tragedy coming, of course, but are committed enough to the family and these objects to see it through. The Palais Ephrussi on the Ringstrasse is ransacked, all the treasures scattered to the wind under Aryanization, never to be recovered. The family itself suffers deaths and tragedies and evantually become refugees in England, the Netherlands and America. Few things survive, but miraculously, the netsuke do, smuggled out under the nose of the Nazis by the family's Gentile maid, Anna, who hides them in her mattress until the end of the war. They are eventually reunited with the family, and De Waal's Uncle Iggie takes them back to Tokyo, where he becomes a successful businessman in the postwar era. De Waal inherits them on his death, and they are now in his home in London, in a vitrine he purchased from the Albert Museum. De Waal is a ceramics artist, and his interest in the netsuke begin as interest in their artistic merits, but you can tell he quickly becomes obsessed with how these objects' history have intertwined with his family's own. He draws you right into the obsession with him. I highly recommend. The Paris section can get somewhat confusing, as every Comte and Comtesse has 57 different names, but the story is so compelling you muddle through. The netsuke "live" in 4 different eras - Paris, Vienna, Tokyo and London, and each time period is so fascinating you don't want to leave.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I really liked the second half of this book, but the first half was SO slow and it took me forever to really get into the story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I found this to be a well-written and thorough personal journey. I happen to really enjoy this genre, especially when there is a family tree at the beginning, to follow the story from generation to generation. Still, I did find it a bit slow at the beginning and actually put it down for a few months upon hitting the half-way point. It was good, engaging and I did not want to abandon it. I picked it up again a few days ago and found the latter half of the book much easier and more interesting and was able to finish without any problems. The author, Edmund de Waal, the British-born son of a Dutch clergyman in the Church of England, has inherited a set of 264 small *netsuke* - tiny wood and ivory carvings from Japan - from his great uncle, who lived in Tokyo. De Waal, a ceramicist, is struck by their beauty and decides to trace their origin and journeys over 5 generations through his family. His discovery of the journeys take him to Vienna, Paris, Odessa, and Japan and trace the history of a very prominent, wealthy Jewish dynasty who were decimated by the Nazis during World War II. All that remained of their wealth was this collection of netsuke, hidden and rediscovered, after the war. It took De Waal over 2 years to reconstruct the story and write this book and his obsession to do so is our gain.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a great book. de Waal is an heir of the Ephrussis, a Jewish banking family that was almost as rich as the Rothschilds. He inherits 264 netsuke, which are miniature Japanese carvings that used to close a purse or a robe.He then traces how these objects came to be, when they were bought, and how a lady servant took them away in front of the Nazis. His people are very colorful - Charles Ephrussi, the original buyer of the objects, was the model for Swann in Proust;s epic book and his uncle, who left him the netsuke, lived in Japan for many years with his boyfriend.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Hare with Amber Eyes is part memoir, part travel log, part history book. It tells the story of a collection of small Japanese carvings called netsuke that de Waal inherits from his uncle and how they journey through the generations. It took me months to get through but the last few hours (I listened to it) were quite compelling. De Waal is the brother of one of my favorite Russophiles. What a talented family!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Book on CD read by Michael Maloney

    When his great uncle Iggie died in 1994, Edmund de Waal inherited a collection of 264 netsuke. The tiny Japanese wood and ivory carvings had long fascinated him and he wanted to know more about how they came to be in this collection. Thus began a search back through the archives of history, and family lore, to discover a family banking dynasty dating back to the nineteenth century in Paris and Vienna. At one time the family was every bit as prominent and wealthy as the Rothschilds. But by the end of WW2, the collection of carvings – which has been hidden by a servant – were all that remained of their vast holdings.

    What a wonderful biography of a family this is. Told with eyes wide open, but with a great deal of love and respect, de Waal takes the reader back through time and breathes life into the history of not just his family, but of art, culture, politics, and war. Though I was listening to the audio, I kept picking up the text to look at the pictures, and how I wish there had been more of them!

    The audio book is capably narrated by Michael Maloney.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is a pretty interesting account of the travels, through five generations, of a collection of netsuke, Japanese carvings used as fasteners to secure small containers to the sashes of kimonos. The collection started around 1871 in Paris and spent the years 1899-1947 in Vienna before moving on to Tokyo and London. The book includes photos and etchings of members of the Ephrussi family and some of their residences, including the fabulous Palais Ephrussi in Vienna.

    At first I was hesitant about finishing this book due to awkward sentence structure and the fact that paragraphs jump from one subject to another and are at times hard to follow. It just bugged me enough to consider not finishing the book. Once I got over my bias, I found the story to be strangely compelling.

    I liked the descriptions of cities, residences, and people. Edmund de Waal, the fifth generation to own the netsuke collection and the author of this book, digs deep and really fleshes out the personalities of the successive owners; Charles: the rich Parisian public figure. Viktor: the unintended heir to the Ephrussi banking dynasty. Elizabeth: the intellectual lawyer who inherited the collection after it had been hidden away for years. Iggie: who traveled widely in search of himself.

    I was captivated by lively Emmy Schey von Koromla Ephrussi, Mr. de Waal’s great-grandmother. She lived an idyllic life in Vienna. She had many admirers, a maid to dress her, servants to wait on her, and a palace to live in with her husband Viktor and their three children. I believe she was a good mother - she told stories to her children when they were young.

    Once the Nazis had taken over the Palais Ephrussi in 1938, I couldn’t help but wonder how in the world the netsuke collection got out of there! After all, the Nazis had taken out almost everything the Ephrussi family owned and sold it, gave it to German museums, or to Hitler himself. You will find out the answer to this question.

    The title of the book is The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance, so I presumed the story would be about the collection. It is, but mostly it’s about the family and what they went through as Jews living in Paris and Vienna amid growing anti-Semitism. De Waal may not be the most professional writer, but I’m glad his friends talked him into writing this account. It is a fascinating story and it won the Costa Biography Award in 2010.

    You would also think that a book about a netsuke collection would actually have a few pictures of them. Nope. There is the merest scattering of very tiny photos on the cover. That was a big disappointment for me.

    I have no idea if everything in this book is true; some of the background information could be construed as wishful thinking or over embellishment, such as the connections with the renowned European artists and writers of the day. Unfortunately, with all the falsifying exposures of writers over the past few years, I now read biographies with a slightly skeptical eye. For this I apologize.

    Overall, I certainly enjoyed reading The Hare With Amber Eyes and would recommend it to people who enjoy biographies.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A leisurely history of a collection of Netsuke which had been in the authors family since the late 19th century. The most fantastic part is how the collection in austria in a Jewish family managed to stay in that family.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Not generally being a reader of biography or indeed non-fiction of any sort, I wouldn't have read this fascinating book had not my aunty, who has similar tastes in literature to myself, sent me it after having raved about it over the phone for several weeks. It was rather hard to understand why she was so excited from her descriptions: "It's written by this guy, he's from an old Russian Jewish banking family and he decided to track the history of his Great-uncle's collection of Japanese netsuke..." "Wow, yeah, that sounds fascinating, Aunty Lexie..." I said, whilst privately wondering what she was on. Well, now I know, although whether I can describe the enchantment de Waal spins is another thing, especially in my present exhausted and headache-y state (unconnected with the reading process, I hasten to add!) I'll try to keep it simple: the writing is of very high quality, the style of narrative is extraordinarily engaging (the word "friendly" springs to mind) and the exploration of stories, from the author's quest on the micro scale broadening through family history to an overview of world history spanning over a century, is achieved with a delicacy of touch and intelligence that enables the complex interweaving timelines to be combined in a cohesive whole. Very, very impressive. Thanks, Aunty Lexie!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Edmund de Waal’s beautifully descriptive account follows his Russian Jewish family from Odessa where, after making their fortunes in the grain business, his great-great-grandfather Ignace von Ephrussi and Ignace’s older brother, Leon Ephrussi, emigrate with their families—Ignace to Vienna, Leon to Paris. Both men become extremely wealthy, building and living in palaces where they raise their children, make names for themselves, and become part of fashionable society. When Edmund inherits his great-uncle Ignace’s beautiful 264 piece Japanese netsuke collection, his curiosity about the original collector of these valuable pieces of art, Charles Ephrussi, a son of the above-mentioned Leon, inspires him to begin his search through the past in Paris. From Paris, where Leon’s branch of the family settles, to Vienna where Ignace von Ephrussi builds the magnificent Palais Ephrussi for Edmund’s own branch of the family, the author takes us on a journey through the generations that is rich with 19th and 20th century European history. From the mid-1800s in Vienna and Paris, the two branches of the wealthy Ephrussi family continue to prosper; Ignace becomes a powerful banker in Vienna where his bank and his five-story Palais Ephrussi sit on the famous Ringstrasse. From the beginning the Ephrussi’s struggle with their Jewishness, but manage to climb in stature and position amidst a Caucasian European population. With the onslaught of Hitler’s Nazi regime, however, it all comes tumbling down. Yet somehow most of the family survive the camps, although they lose everything else—their funds, the palaces, banks, furniture and art work. Through a strange twist of events, the netsuke collection survives, ending up in Japan, where Charles began his collection. The author’s grandmother, Elizabeth, gives the netsuke to her brother Ignace Ephrussi (Iggy) after they are rediscovered after the war. This is an amazing story of family success, love affairs, pride, loss, defeat and revival. And woven through it all is the story of the netsuke; how they are maintained by the family; how they eventually come into the possession of Edmund de Waal, who shares their story with us with skill and loving regard to detail. Written in first person, present tense, de Waal’s book brings the past to life in a very unique way. An easy to follow family tree is to be found in the book’s front pages. I rarely give a book five stars, but this family account earns every one.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    As someone who is into their genealogy, yet from a family of people who barely left their mark on the world, I found this book fascinating. It covers art history, the holocaust, how Jews had their works of art stolen and how the dispersed families managed to fit in their new countries, de Waal pays a great tribute to his ancestors: it is the kind of book I'd love to write about my ancestors.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    When Edmund de Waal inherited a priceless collection of 264 netsukes—japanese miniatures made from ivory depicting animals and scenes of everyday life—from his great uncle, Iggie, who told him how he had played with them as a child in his mother's dressing room with his siblings, the author decided to set aside his own work as a world-renowned potter and curator to travel to the places which would help him uncover the rich family history from which he descends, and of which the netsukes were the only memento of the dynasty which were the vastly wealthy Jewish Ephrussi family, rich grain merchants originally from Odessa who had become powerful bankers in Europe and who were peers to the Rothschild family, only to lose everything to the Nazis. His tale is a sweeping saga, which starts in the 19th century with the magnetic Charles Ephrussi, the original collector of the netsukes, an art collector and patron who admired and promoted the impressionists when they were still considered as radicals, and who purchased some 40 works by Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, and Pissarro, among others, and became part-owner and then editor and contributor to the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, the most important art historical periodical in France. As such, he was a welcome guest at some of the most famous salons in Paris and is known to be one of the inspirations for the figure of Swann in Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time). He also appears in Le déjeuner des canotiers (Luncheon of the Boating Party) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir as the figure seen from the back wearing a hat. But things abruptly changed with the Dreyfus affair in 1894, when the French took sides and anti-semitism became widespread. Suddenly, many old friends were lost and became sworn enemies. De Waal continues the family history, following the path of the nestukes, who came into the hands of Charles's niece as a wedding present. Iggie's mother and the author's great grandmother was a great one for going to the opera and dinner parties wearing fashionable gorgeous dresses with perfectly matched hats and gloves, which her maid Anna always knew how to help her choose and bring off with the perfect piece of jewelry, and always, as she dressed, the children were allowed to play on the yellow rug with the priceless collection of tiny netsuke she kept in the cabinet placed in her dressing room which uncle Charles had given her. The First World War had been hard enough to get through, but then the Nazis came into power and for all of them, the enchanted world at the Palais Ephrussi was shattered forever, as they were turned out of their living quarters and their possessions taken over by the Reich, and the horrors of the holocaust forced them to flee in all directions. I rarely cry when reading a book, but I cried when Anna, after the war is over, reveals to Elizabeth, the author's grandmother, how it is she managed to smuggle the netsuke figures one by one from under the Natzi's very noses in safekeeping as a valuable memento she could salvage for the family for which she had worked all her life.