The Ephrussis: Travel in Time

The Eprhussis book is a companion catalogue to the Jewish Museum exhibition "The Hare with Amber Eyes," on view from November 19, 2021 through May 15, 2022.

 

Published by the Jewish Museum Vienna, The Ephrussis is bilingual, printed in both English and German, and focuses on the story of the Ephrussi family.  Tracing the rise of one of the most important Jewish families in Europe, from their beginnings in Odessa to their wide-ranging activities in Fin de Siècle Europe to their expulsion and flight under National Socialism,  the book shows how family members, who are scattered around the world, deal with their own history.       

 

The exhibition at the museum brings together pieces from the Ephrussi’s collections to examine the ways in which objects can function as storytellers, symbols of resilience, and monuments of a family legacy, including artworks by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Gustave Moreau, and Auguste Renoir, among others; decorative objects; and family photos and ephemera from their lives across four continents. At the exhibition’s centerpiece is the extraordinary collection of Japanese netsuke, miniature carved sculptures of the Edo Period (17th-19th centuries), hidden by a maid from German officials in her mattress during World War II, and later returned to the family after the war. The collection of netsuke has since been handed down to subsequent generations, serving as a connection between the past and the present. The most recent member of the family to inherit the collection, author and ceramicist Edmund de Waal, drew from them the inspiration for his memoir The Hare with Amber Eyes, continuing the family’s storied legacy of artistic and cultural pursuits.