The Hare with Amber Eyes, A Family’s Century of Art and Loss by Edmund de Waal
Telling the story of the Ephrussis family through their exquisite collection of Japanese netsuke seems an unlikely premise for a book, but this unusual memoir works.
The Ephrussis were a wealthy Russian Jewish family who made their first fortune in wheat, but soon moved on Rothschild-like to banking and other ventures. By the mid 19th C, they were known as les Rois de Blé (“kings of grain.”) In Paris and Vienna, the Ephrussis family lived fashionably, built palatially, and collected art. By the end of WWII, however, the netsuke collection was all that remained of the Ephrussis empire.
Author Edmund de Waal, a fifth-generation member of the family and celebrated ceramist, pieces together a century of family history by tracing the voyage of the tiny netsukes from Paris, Vienna, England, Japan, and back to England. Mr. de Waal has not written a detailed family biography but rather an elegant memoir that evokes the spirit rather than the specifics and explores the appeal of collecting beautiful objects.