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Genre - Non-Fiction
The author inherited a fascinating collection of tiny (and valuable) Japanese figures called netsuke. He traces the history of his family through generations of art collecting and European luxury, rise and fall, through the fate of the little netuske.
The Ephrussi family were fabulously wealthy Jewish merchants, and Charles Ephrussi acquired the figures in Paris during the rage for Japonisme (Charles was a model for Proust's Swann). They were then sent to the Vienna branch of the family as a wedding present, and the magnificent way of life that prevailed under the Austro-Hungarian Empire is vividly described. Yet the same family came to grief in a matter of days when the Nazis took over in Austria, and the collections, furniture, and works of art were all shipped off: the netsuke were thought to be lost. The story, however, ends in Japan, where a surviving member of the family was able to take them at the end of WW II, and from him the author, a famous potter who had studied with Japanese masters, inherited the netsuke and now tells their story. This is history at its most engaging, a story of glamour, loss, and redemption.
---- Reviewed by Susan, Montrose
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