THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER. WINNER OF THE 2010 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD. 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them bigger 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 story far larger and more dramatic than he could ever have imagined. From a burgeoning empire in Odessa to fin de siecle Paris, from occupied Vienna to Tokyo, Edmund de Waal traces the netsuke's journey through generations of his remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century. 'You have in your hands a masterpiece' Frances Wilson, Sunday Times. 'The most brilliant book I've read for years...A rich tale of the pleasure and pains of what it is to be human' Bettany Hughes, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year. 'A complex and beautiful book' Diana Athill.

The Hare With Amber Eyes: The #1 Sunday Times Bestseller

Biographies & Memoirs

Edmund De Waal

Arts & Literature

Vintage Books

Letters to Camondo

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance

Physical description; 354 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 20 cm. Contents; Paris (1871-1899) -- Vienna (1899-1938) -- Vienna Kov¨ecses, Tunbridge Wells, Vienna (1938-1947) -- Tokyo (1947-2001) -- Tokyo, Odessa, London (2001-2009). Summary; 264 wood and ivory carvings of animals, plants and people, none of them larger than a matchbox; apprentice potter Edmund de Waal was entranced by the collection when he first encountered it in the Tokyo apartment of his great uncle Iggie. When he inherited them, he discovered that they unlocked a story larger than he could have imagined. Subjects; De Waal, Edmund. Ephrussi family. Ephrussi, Charles (1849-1905). De Waal, Edmund - Travel - Europe. De Waal, Edmund - Family. Ephrussi, Charles (1849-1905) - Art collections. De Waal, Edmund. De Waal, Edmund (1964-). Ephrussi, Charles (1849-1905). De Waal family. Ephrussi family - History. Netsukes. Jewish families - Europe - History. Jewish bankers - Europe - Biography. Jewish businesspeople - Europe - Biography. Art - Collectors and collecting - Europe - Biography. Netsukes - Private collections - England - London. Jewish families - Europe - History. Netsukes - Private collections - Europe. Biography. Art and Design. Tokyo. Odessa. Paris. Vienna. Biographies. Genealogy. Jews. netsuke. collecting. Biography & autobiography ; Carving & carvings. Biography & Autobiography / General. Genres; Biography. Historical fiction. Illustrated.

The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance

Community & Culture

London: Chatto & Windus

The Frick Collection presents a temporary installation of sculptures by acclaimed author and ceramist Edmund de Waal. Site-specific works made of porcelain, steel, gold, marble, and glass will be displayed in the museum's main galleries alongside works from the permanent collection, from May 30 - November 17, 2019.

Elective Affinities Edmund de Waal at The Frick Collection

The Frick Collection

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.

The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

MacMillan Audio

From abstract vessels to domestic tableware and sculptural pieces in earthenware, stoneware and porcelain, this volume presents ceramic design from all over the world. It features the work of ceramic artists who use a wide range of clays and decorative and firing techniques to produce pieces.

Ceramics

New Holland Publishers, Ltd.

From abstract vessels to domestic tableware and one-off sculptural pieces in earthenware, stoneware and porcelain, this exciting new book represents the best in contemporary ceramic design from all over the world. It features the work of prominent ceramic artists who use a wide range of clays and decorative and firing techniques to produce unique pieces.

Other Media

Zaiatc s iantarnymi glazami: skrytoe nasledie

AST Moskva

The Hare with Amber Eyes A Hidden Inheritance (Chinese Edition)

People's Literature Publishing House

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.

The Hare with Amber Eyes (Chinese Edition)

Shandong Publishing House of literature and Art

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Books by Edmund De Waal