The Ephrussis were a grand banking family, as rich and respected as the Rothschilds, who "burned like a comet" in nineteenth-century Paris and Vienna society. Yet by the end of World War II, almost the only thing remaining of their vast empire was a collection of 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox. The renowned ceramicist Edmund de Waal became the fifth generation to inherit this small and exquisite collection of netsuke. Entranced by their beauty and mystery, he determined to trace the story ...
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The Ephrussis were a grand banking family, as rich and respected as the Rothschilds, who "burned like a comet" in nineteenth-century Paris and Vienna society. Yet by the end of World War II, almost the only thing remaining of their vast empire was a collection of 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox. The renowned ceramicist Edmund de Waal became the fifth generation to inherit this small and exquisite collection of netsuke. Entranced by their beauty and mystery, he determined to trace the story of his family through the story of the collection. The netsuke--drunken monks, almost-ripe plums, snarling tigers--were gathered by Charles Ephrussi at the height of the Parisian rage for all things Japanese. Charles had shunned the place set aside for him in the family business to make a study of art, and of beautiful living. An early supporter of the Impressionists, he appears, oddly formal in a top hat, in Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party . Marcel Proust studied Charles closely enough to use him as a model for the aesthete and lover Swann in Remembrance of Things Past . Charles gave the carvings as a wedding gift to his cousin Viktor in Vienna; his children were allowed to play with one netsuke each while they watched their mother, the Baroness Emmy, dress for ball after ball. Her older daughter grew up to disdain fashionable society. Longing to write, she struck up a correspondence with Rilke, who encouraged her in her poetry. The Anschluss changed their world beyond recognition. Ephrussi and his cosmopolitan family were imprisoned or scattered, and Hitler's theorist on the "Jewish question" appropriated their magnificent palace on the Ringstrasse. A library of priceless books and a collection of Old Master paintings were confiscated by the Nazis. But the netsuke were smuggled away by a loyal maid, Anna, and hidden in her straw mattress. Years after the war, she would find a way to return them to the family she'd served even in their exile. In The Hare with Amber Eyes , Edmund de Waal unfolds the story of a remarkable family and a tumultuous century. Sweeping yet intimate, it is a highly original meditation on art, history, and family, as elegant and precise as the netsuke themselves.
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Add this copy of The Hare With Amber Eyes: a Family's Century of Art and to cart. $82.56, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2012 by Macmillan Audio.
Excellent, riveting book, a little slow at the beginning but then you can't put it down.
carol w
Oct 18, 2012
pictures worth thousands of words
A wonderful page-turning historical story, newly illuminated by masses of photos and maps and documents. I don't own two copies of many books, but this duplicate is so worth it!
Susan G
May 3, 2012
More than biography
The author traces his inheritance of a netsuke collection back to the ancestor who first acquired it. In so doing he tells us of the lives of those who have owned it, and of the times and places in which they lived. The collection amazingly survived even a Nazi incursion into the very house where they were displayed, though much else was destroyed; it was preserved by a German woman who was loyal to this Jewish family.
bleakbird
Dec 1, 2011
My favorite book this year!
This is fascinating, beautifully written and sensitively observed. I am giving it to those I love the most.
Reginald R
Jul 8, 2011
Art & history
This is not jjust all about netsuke, a collection of which the author has inherited, but an excellent historical narrative, after a Parisian episode, of what life was like in Austria, and Vienna in particular, before and after the dissolution and dismemberment in 1918-19 of th Austro-Hungarian Empire, and later, in 1938-39, of the Nazi political, cultural and economic takeover of the country. The Jewish predicament during all these dramatic happenings is espeacially well presented.
