Edmund de Waal

The Ephrussis were a grand banking family, as rich and respected as the Rothschilds, who “burned like a comet” in nineteenth-century Paris and Vienna society. Yet by the end of World War II, almost the only thing remaining of their vast empire was a collection of 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox. The renowned ceramicist Edmund de Waal became the fifth generation to inherit this small and exquisite collection of netsuke. Entranced by their beauty and mystery, he determined to trace the story of his family through the story of the collection. The netsuke—drunken monks, almost-ripe plums, snarling tigers—were gathered by Charles Ephrussi at the height of the Parisian rage for all things Japanese. Charles had shunned the place set aside for him in the family business to make a study of art, and of beautiful living. An early supporter of the Impressionists, he appears, oddly formal in a top hat, in Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party. Marcel Proust studied Charles closely enough to use him as a model for the aesthete and lover Swann in Remembrance of Things Past. Charles gave the carvings as a wedding gift to his cousin Viktor in Vienna; his children were allowed to play with one netsuke each while they watched their mother, the Baroness Emmy, dress for ball after ball. Her older daughter grew up to disdain fashionable society. Longing to write, she struck up a correspondence with Rilke, who encouraged her in her poetry. The Anschluss changed their world beyond recognition. Ephrussi and his cosmopolitan family were imprisoned or scattered, and Hitler’s theorist on the “Jewish question” appropriated their magnificent palace on the Ringstrasse. A library of priceless books and a collection of Old Master paintings were confiscated by the Nazis. But the netsuke were smuggled away by a loyal maid, Anna, and hidden in her straw mattress. Years after the war, she would find a way to return them to the family she’d served even in their exile. In The Hare with Amber Eyes, Edmund de Waal unfolds the story of a remarkable family and a tumultuous century. Sweeping yet intimate, it is a highly original meditation on art, history, and family, as elegant and precise as the netsuke themselves.

A Family's Century of Art and Loss

The Hare with Amber Eyes

A tragic family history told in a collection of imaginary letters to a famed collector, Moise de Camondo Letters to Camondo is a collection of imaginary letters from Edmund de Waal to Moise de Camondo, the banker and art collector who created a spectacular house in Paris, now the Musée Nissim de Camondo, and filled it with the greatest private collection of French eighteenth-century art. The Camondos were a Jewish family from Constantinople, “the Rothschilds of the East,” who made their home in Paris in the 1870s and became philanthropists, art collectors, and fixtures of Belle Époque high society, as well as being targets of antisemitism—much like de Waal's relations, the Ephrussi family, to whom they were connected. Moise de Camondo created a spectacular house and filled it with art for his son, Nissim; after Nissim was killed in the First World War, the house was bequeathed to the French state. Eventually, the Camondos were murdered by the Nazis. After de Waal, one of the world’s greatest ceramic artists, was invited to make an exhibition in the Camondo house, he began to write letters to Moise de Camondo. These fifty letters are deeply personal reflections on assimilation, melancholy, family, art, the vicissitudes of history, and the value of memory.

Letters to Camondo

Extraordinary new non-fiction, a gripping blend of history and memoir, by the author of the award-winning and bestselling international sensation, The Hare with Amber Eyes. In The White Road, bestselling author and artist Edmund de Waal gives us an intimate narrative history of his lifelong obsession with porcelain, or "white gold." A potter who has been working with porcelain for more than forty years, de Waal describes how he set out on five journeys to places where porcelain was dreamed about, refined, collected and coveted--and that would help him understand the clay's mysterious allure. From his studio in London, he starts by travelling to three "white hills"--sites in China, Germany and England that are key to porcelain's creation. But his search eventually takes him around the globe and reveals more than a history of cups and figurines; rather, he is forced to confront some of the darkest moments of twentieth-century history. Part memoir, part history, part detective story, The White Road chronicles a global obsession with alchemy, art, wealth, craft and purity. In a sweeping yet intimate style that recalls The Hare with Amber Eyes, de Waal gives us a singular understanding of "the spectrum of porcelain" and the mapping of desire.

A Journey Through Porcelain

The White Road

A New York Times Bestseller An Economist Book of the Year Costa Book Award Winner for Biography Galaxy National Book Award Winner (New Writer of the Year Award) Edmund de Waal is a world-famous ceramicist. Having spent thirty years making beautiful pots—which are then sold, collected, and handed on—he has a particular sense of the secret lives of objects. When he inherited a collection of 264 tiny Japanese wood and ivory carvings, called netsuke, he wanted to know who had touched and held them, and how the collection had managed to survive. And so begins this extraordinarily moving memoir and detective story as de Waal discovers both the story of the netsuke and of his family, the Ephrussis, over five generations. A nineteenth-century banking dynasty in Paris and Vienna, the Ephrussis were as rich and respected as the Rothchilds. Yet by the end of the World War II, when the netsuke were hidden from the Nazis in Vienna, this collection of very small carvings was all that remained of their vast empire.

A Hidden Inheritance

Published to mark the display of library of exile at the British Museum, this beautifully produced new book reflects on the themes raised by de Waal's thought-provoking work of art. A preface by Booker Prize-nominated author Elif Shafak reflects on the importance of literature and its capacity to transcend language and borders. The introduction from Hartwig Fischer, Director of the British Museum, positions the artwork within the wider context of the Museum's collection, highlighting the dialogue between objects from across time and throughout history and the contemporary. Finally, de Waal concentrates on the work itself, its journey to the British Museum via Venice and Dresden, and its future role in the foundation of the New University Library in Mosul.

Edmund de Waal Library of Exile

das verborgene Erbe der Familie Ephrussi

Der Hase mit den Bernsteinaugen

Aan het einde van de negentiende eeuw koopt Charles Ephrussi, een schatrijke graanhandelaar en kunstliefhebber, een verzameling netsukes: traditionele Japanse figuurtjes van ivoor of hout. De kostbare beeldjes worden een geliefd familiebezit. Wanneer veertig jaar later de nazi’s Wenen bezetten en de joodse familie Ephrussi wordt afgevoerd, is ook het lot van de collectie onzeker. Dankzij een onverwachte wending en de moed van één vrouw vinden de beeldjes hun weg terug naar de familie. In De haas met amberkleurige ogen beschrijft Edmund de Waal het illustere verhaal van zijn familie en hun bijzondere bezit. Tegen de achtergrond van een tumultueuze eeuw volgt hij de reis van de netsukes langs de stamboom van zijn opmerkelijke familie: van het ontluikend imperium van de Ephrussi’s in het verre Odessa naar het fin de siècle in Parijs, en van bezet Wenen naar het naoorlogse Tokio.

een verborgen erfenis

De haas met ogen van barnsteen

De haas met ogen van barnsteen / druk 1

The first monograph on Edmund de Waal, the internationally renowned artist and bestselling author of The Hare with the Amber Eyes. Featuring contributions from Emma Crichton–Miller, Colm Toibin, Peter Carey, AS Byatt, Alexandra Munroe, and Deborah Saunt. The first complete survey of de Waal’s career to date, this groundbreaking monograph encompasses major exhibitions and installations at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate Liverpool, and the Gagosian Gallery in New York. Stunning photography conveys the delicacy of de Waal’s works and provides a rare glimpse into his studio practice. In addition to being one of the world’s leading ceramicists, de Waal is also a renowned historian of the medium. His critical and personal essays and poetry are interspersed throughout the book, bringing to light the prominence of ceramics in our everyday lives. Together, de Waal’s art and writing speak to his enduring fascination with the nature of objects and the attendant history of their collection and display. Contributions to this monograph by novelists Colm Toibin, Peter Carey, and AS Byatt appear alongside critical essays by Guggenheim curator Alexandra Munroe, journalist Emma Crichton–Miller, and architect Deborah Saunt. Elegant papers and a tooled case make Edmund de Waal an exquisitely collectable object.

Lee Beard

Simon Martin

Louise Campbell

Louise Weller

An intimate look at Ben Nicholson's everyday inspirations

From the Studio

Ben Nicholson

Blanche Craig

The history of ceramic art is ingrained in the history of mankind. Clay is one of the very first materials 'invented' by man. An essential part of our lives it has been moulded, thrown, glazed, decorated and fired for over 30,000 years in order to preserve and transport food and water. In more recent times clay has been used not just by artisans and potters, but also by artists, designers and architects. The Pot Book is the first publication to document the extraordinary range and variety of ceramic vessels of all periods, in a comprehensive and accessible A to Z format. From a delicate bowl made by an unnamed artisan in China in the third millennium BC, or a jug made in eighteenth-century Dresden, to a plate made by Picasso in 1952, a 'spade form' made by Hans Coper or the vases of Grayson Perry today, it's all in included in this beautifully illustrated collection. Each entry is sequenced in alphabetical order by the name of the artist/potter, the school, or style, creating a grand tour through the very finest examples of the art form.

The Pot Book

Més de dues-centes figuretes de fusta i d'ivori, cap d'elles més gran que una capsa de llumins, són l'origen d'aquest fascinant llibre en què Edmund de Waal descriu el viatge que han fet al llarg dels anys. Un viatge ple d'aventures, de guerra, d'amor i de pèrdua, que resumeix, en la història d'una família, la història d'Europa dels segles XIX i XX. Un text evocatiu i de gran bellesa que comença amb una petita llebre d'ulls d'ambre que es barreja amb les monedes dins d'una butxaca, i acaba, com tot autèntic viatge, amb el descobriment d'un mateix.

Una herència oculta

La llebre amb ulls d'ambre

Edmund de Waal, um dos mais importantes ceramistas da atualidade, era fascinado pela coleção de 264 miniaturas japonesas entalhadas em madeira e marfim guardadas no apartamento do tio-avô, que vivia em Tóquio. Nenhuma daquelas peças era maior do que uma caixa de fósforos e, no entanto, seu valor revelou-se grandioso. Mais tarde, quando herdou estes netsuquês, Edmund descobriu que, além da riqueza artística, eles carregavam uma história muito maior: revelavam o passado de sua família e eventos cruciais do século XX. A partir dessa delicada coleção, A lebre com olhos de âmbar, obra vencedora do Costa Book Award na categoria Biografia e finalista do South Bank Sky Arts Award na categoria Literatura, transporta o leitor desde um império em Odessa - passando pela Paris do fin-de-siècle e pela Viena ocupada pelos nazistas - até o Japão e a Inglaterra contemporâneos.

A lebre com olhos de âmbar

Journey into an Obsession

De laatste eigenaar van een verzameling Japanse gordelknopen, nazaat van een steenrijke joodse familie, gaat na hoe het leven van eerdere eigenaren is verlopen.

De haas met de amberkleurige ogen / druk 8

The definitive illustrated edition of the international bestseller Two hundred and sixty-four Japanese wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox: Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in his great-uncle Iggie's Tokyo apartment. When he later inherited the netsuke, they unlocked a far more dramatic story than he could ever have imagined. From a burgeoning empire in Odessa to fin de siècle Paris, from occupied Vienna to postwar Tokyo, de Waal traces the netsuke's journey through generations of his remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century. With sumptuous photographs of the netsuke collection and full-color images from de Waal's family archive, the illustrated edition of The Hare with Amber Eyes transforms a deeply intimate saga into a work of visual art.

Edmund de Waal

About

Books

Join the club