Edmund de Waal's The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Fascinating Look at Art and Loss Across a Century of Family History

Amazon Customer: Great book about the plight of european Jewish people

Canada on Jun 17, 2023

Jo-Ann: somewhat factual and not an easy read

Canada on May 23, 2023

Oscar: The author shares his personal history with the reader.

Canada on Jul 16, 2022

Amazon Customer: An amazing book, chosen by one of my book club members. I found it heavy going at first, reluctant to take time to look up unfamiliar words and places, and too frequently aware of my limited knowledge of European art. But as the author moved into the 20th century and the horror of the two world wars and the naiveté of his family dramatized his story, I was so caught up that I could not put the book down. Simply, an excellent read.

Canada on May 13, 2019

Jack Todd: The Hare With Amber Eyes begins so well and promises so much that when it fails, it leaves the reader feeling rather queasy. The problem is so obvious, and so easily fixed, that you wonder why some strong-willed editor didn't tell Edmund De Waal that he was systematically wrecking his own book and that by changing his approach, he might have produced an enduring classic.
The problem is De Waal himself: he is everywhere, in what is a remarkable account of 264 Japanese netsuke on their winding, sometimes tragic path from Japan to a niche in De Waal's own home in England. A world-famous ceramicist, De Waal is too precious by half and he can't stop pausing, often at length, to analyze his own reactions to everything he sees. That tendency, combined with his grating use of the present tense, will have readers gritting their teeth and wanting to re-edit it for themselves.
The book begins with its strongest section, on the Paris of Marcel Proust, Edgar Degas and De Waal's own ancestor, the fabulously wealthy collector Charles Ephrussi. It is strong again on the horrors inflicted on other members of the extended family in Vienna during both world wars. De Waal offers a real, horrid...

Canada on Mar 31, 2012

Gio: In 1878, a bundle of trinkets was shipped from Japan to Paris, to the art dealer Philippe Sichel. The trinkets were netsuke, the sort of outmoded curiosities that Meiji Japanese were thrilled to unload on affluent Westerners. [Netsuke are miniature sculptures, invented in 17th-century Japan to serve a practical function. Traditional Japanese garments had no pockets; however, men who wore them needed a place to store their personal belongings. Their solution was to place such objects in containers hung by cords from their sashes. The containers may have been pouches or baskets, but the most popular were beautifully crafted boxes, which were held shut by sliding beads on cords. The fastener that secured the cord at the top of the sash was a carved toggle called a netsuke.] One such affluent Parisian was Charles Ephrussi, the 'artistic' younger son of a Jewish family of bankers with operations in Odessa, Vienna, and Paris, a family of wealth almost as vast as that of the Rothschilds, with whom they were allied. Charles bought the collection of 264 netsuke in one swoop. This was at the height of "japonisme" in France; Charles was an influential collector and self-made art historian,...

United States on Oct 31, 2011

M. A Newman: When this book came out in 2010, it was immediately a candidate for everyone's best of the year list. "The Hare with Amber Eyes" by Edmund De Waal is a fascinating family history which ranges from the France of Marcel Proust, the Vienna of Franz Joseph, and post-war Japan.

Edmund De Waal is one of Britain's leading potters and was trained in both England and Japan. He is also a member of the Ephussi family, a prominent Jewish family of the European Belle Epoque.

The Ephussi were originally grain traders operating out of Odessa with offices in St Petersburg, London, Vienna, and Paris. The wealth that success in the wheat trade brought also led to the creation of great collections of paintings, porcelain, furniture, and sculpture. The hare of the title was part of a collection of netsuke originally collected by the author's distant Cousin Charles.

Following its opening in 1858 by Commodore Perry, Japan and things from the Edo and Meiji period became a positive mania in Europe and America. Charles Ephussi, along with collecting impressionist paintings and serving as a model for Proust's Charles Swann, formed a collection of 263 different carved wooded animals,...

United States on Sep 24, 2011