THE HARE WITH THE AMBER EYES A HIDDEN INHERITANCE Edmund DE WAAL Blanca van Hasselt “The hare with sponsor, Charles Ephrussi is represented for the evening parties, the children the amber eyes” in one of Renoir’s famous painting “le are allowed to play with the netsuke. is a biography not déjeuner des canotiers” (the luncheon They all have their favourite pick. of a person but of of the boating party) where he stands Among the children, Elisabeth is rather a family. It starts (in suit and with hat) in the background remarkable. She is bright and interested out with curiosity of a festive company of the painter and in philosophy. In the early 20th century about a collection his friends on a boating outing on the she is one of the first female students of 264 netsuke Seine outside Paris. Charles Ehphrussi at the University of Vienna. While which is passed is also said to have inspired Proust for studying law she composes poetry and on in the family his character “Charles Swann” in the corresponds with Rilke. Fortune turns from generation to generation. When book “In search of lost time”. Edmund when in 1938 Nazi Germany annexes the present owner, Edmund de Waal, de Waal, as an artist himself, reflects Austria. The family scatters. Elisabeth receives the collection, he starts upon sponsors and the influence they and her family settle in England. She investigating about the netsuke. He may have on the creative mind of the takes her father Viktor in (her mother wants to find out how the collection artists, and on the sometimes-strained having died). Her brother Iggy moves came in the family, which leads him relationship between both artist and to the USA and serves with the Allied to research on the previous owners. sponsor. forces battling on the front in Europe. Edmund de Waal is a potter. As an In December 1945 Elisabeth returns to artist he is sensitive to the quality of Then in 1899 Charles’s cousin Viktor post war Vienna in order to find out what the carvings, the material, the texture, Ephrussi, who is heading the Ephrussi remains of their belongings. However, the colours, … and intrigued about the bank in Vienna, marries Emily Schey the Gestapo has sent Viktor’s books to personality of his ancestors starting this von Koromla. From all over Europe the the National Library and many of the collection. Ephrussi family sends the most exclusive paintings have ended up in Vienna’s wedding gifts and so the collection of museums (Kunsthistorische Museum The Ephrussi family are Russian netsuke travels to Vienna. In Vienna, & Naturhistorische Museum). Only Jews originating from Odessa on the Viktor’s father, Ignace Ephrussi, is a a few objects can be salvaged by the Black Sea. They were in the grain trade, bright banker. Born in Odessa, starting family, among which the netsuke which exporting from central Russia to Western business in Vienna, his ambition is to had been hidden by Anna, Emmy’s Europe. They become rich and wealthy found a banking dynasty in his new servant, in her mattress during the and add banking to the grain trade. homeland. Here he takes active part Nazi occupation. Iggy takes over the The banking becomes more and more in social life, is interested in art and collection and decides to bring them successful and Charles Joachim Ephrussi architecture, and orders the building of back to Japan. This is in 1947, post war decides to expand and establish offices in the sumptuous Palais Ephrussi located Japan, a Tokyo of boogie-woogie and Vienna, Paris and London. These offices on the Ringstrasse. Similar as with jazz. Once in Japan, not only the netsuke are run by his sons. They compare with Charles in Paris, here too Ignace leaves stay there, but also Iggy stays there for Rothschild and other famous bankers of a mark on his local contemporaries. The the rest of his life. He is in charge of the time. They are dazzlingly rich. Ephrussis are found in the novels of the Japanese branch of a Swiss banking Joseph Roth like “the radetzky march”, company. In Paris the Ephrussi bank was in “spider’s web” and several others. the rue Monceau, nearby where today Edmund de Waal, one of Elisabeth’s the Japanese embassy is located. The It is in the Palais Ephrussi that grandsons, meets Iggy frequently when netsuke come in the family in Paris Viktor and Emmy live. Viktor is not he studies ceramics in Japan. As an (sometime by 1880) where one of the so much a trader or a financial, he artist, he was initially not favouring younger brothers, Charles Ephrussi, is much more interested in art and vitrines for displaying his oeuvres. lives a life of critic of art, collector philosophy. He reads a lot and together However, through the netsuke he and sponsor. He loved opera and his with his wife he is an adept of the ever understands that vitrines though isolating dog was called Carmen. This is the famous opera of Vienna. Initially they objects from the public, they also frame Paris of the end of the 19th century, the have three children, and later on yet the objects and give them a different time that Western Europe discovers another son. The children grow up in dimension. Japan and Japanese culture. This the heavily decorated, marbled and See also: part of the biography describes the gilded Palais Ephrussi. But out of public origin of “Japonisme”. It is the Paris view, in Emmy’s dressing room, is the http://www.edmunddewaal.com of the impressionist painters Degas, vitrine with netsuke. Emmy loves to http://www.vintage-books.co.uk/ Manet, Monet, Renoir; the collectors tell stories to her children and every books/harewithambereyes/ Cernuschi and Guimet. It is the Paris day she spends some time with them http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ of the literary critics Goncourt. As a telling stories. Then while she dresses Ephrussi_family 17 i-News August/ September 2012.