{"product_id":"the-hare-with-amber-eyes-a-hidden-inheritance-9780701184179","title":"The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance","description":"\u003cp\u003e264 wood and ivory carvings none of them larger than a matchbox: potter Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in the Tokyo apartment of his great uncle Iggie. Later  when Edmund inherited the netsuke  they unlocked a story far larger than he could ever have imagined . . .  The Ephrussis came from Odessa  and at one time were the largest grain exporters in the world; in the 1870s  Charles Ephrussi was part of a wealthy new generation settling in Paris. Marcel Proust was briefly his secretary and used Charles as the model for the aesthete Swann in Remembrance of Things Past. Charless passion was collecting  and the netsuke  bought when Japanese objets were all the rage in the salons  were sent as a wedding present to his banker cousin in Vienna.  Later  three children  including a young Ignace  played with the collection as history reverberated around them. The Anschluss and Second World War swept the Ephrussis to the brink of oblivion. Almost all that remained of their vast empire was the netsuke collection  smuggled out of the huge Viennese palace (then occupied by Hitlers theorist on the Jewish Question)  one piece at a time  in the pocket of a loyal maid  and hidden in a straw mattress.  In this stunningly original memoir  Edmund de Waal travels the world to stand in the great buildings his forebears once inhabited. He traces the network of a remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century. And  in prose as elegant and precise as the netsuke themselves  he tells the story of a unique collection which passed from hand to hand  and which  in a twist of fate  found its way home to Japan.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45914191855669,"sku":"ByrdShop_0701184175","price":67.23,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780701184179.jpg?v=1787340063","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-hare-with-amber-eyes-a-hidden-inheritance-9780701184179","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}