Wow, what a treat! In today's "Review" section of The Wall Street Journal, "The Logistical Feat of Renoir's 'Luncheon of the Boating Party." This is part of the "new exhibit at the Phillips Collection in DC."
Not many months ago -- when was it -- ah, here it is, back in May, 2017, the Kimbell Arts Museum in Ft Worth, just down the road from where we live, had an exhibition of The Phillips Collection. We saw the painting that is the subject of the linked article in The WSJ.
I can't recall if we saw the painting earlier during a special Monet exhibit at the Kimbell but if it was not there, it was certainly "referenced" in "Monet: They Early Years."
Monet was part of a "gang of four" as I call them. The other three: Renoir, Pisarro, and Sisley. Around the time Monet married Camille, the two of them depended on the generosity of Renoir and Bazille to literally survive. Had it not been for Renoir and Bazille, the newlyweds may have literally starved to death.
At the time of the painting featured in today's WSJ, Renoir and Monet painted side-by-side for two months along the river banks outside Paris.
Until today, I did not realize that the wealthy socialite and self-described amateur painter Gustave Caillebotte was in the boating party that Renoir painted.
Also: Charles Ephrussi, a writer, critic and collector born in 1849, is thought to be the model for the man in a black coat and top hat, chatting in the background. In fact, I think I've seen Charles Ephrussi in other Caillebotte paintings, or certainly men that looked like him.
[Note: the note on Charles Ephrussi reminded me of the biography of Marcel Proust and it reminded me of my notes on Edmund de Waal's The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance, page 35 in my hardcover copy].
Original Post
Background: in 1991, the author was given a two-year scholarship by a Japanese foundation to give seven young English people with diverse professional interests a grounding in the Japanese language: one year at university; one year in Tokyo.
The author is said to be the #1 ceramicist in England. His Uncle Iggie was 84 at the time, and living in Tokyo.
Wow, early on in the book, p. 5, the word "vitrine." Had I not visited the Dallas Museum of Art recently, I would not have understood the depth or "real" meaning of "vitrine."
Shortly after the author returns to England, his Uncle Iggie, who had the collection of 264 netsuke dies.
The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss
Edmund de Waal,
c. 2010
Two editions: one at the library; my personal copy, the "illustrated edition"
page numbers (lower page numbers: library edition; high page numbers: my illustrated edition)
Two editions: one at the library; my personal copy, the "illustrated edition"
page numbers (lower page numbers: library edition; high page numbers: my illustrated edition)
Preface
- author left school early at 17 to become apprenticed to English potter Bernard Leach
- shelves of books on Japanese pots
- author spent one summer in Japan when he was a teenage apprentice
- returned to England (Wales) and worked as a solitary potter for seven years (~ 18 to ~ 25 years of age)
- now he was back in England; 2-yr scholarship; he was 28 years old
- Japanese potters: writing impassioned letters about Blake, Whitman, Ruskin
- Leach liked Rodin
- Japonisme: the way in which the West has passionately and creatively misunderstood Japan for more than a hundred years
- spent one after afternoon a week with his Uncle Iggie; he was 84 years old at the time
- Senkaku-ji temple where the 47 samurai are buried
- Prince Takamatsu's (young bro of Emperor Hirohito) garden with the pines
- Uncle Iggie's favorite authors: Elmore Leonard or John Le Carre; or memoirs in French (explains the Proust quote at the beginning of the book)
- Uncle Iggie's cold white wine: Sancerre or Pouilly Fume
- place a cup of water in the vitrine to keep ivory from splitting
- quote: "I liked the way that repetition wears things smooth, and there was something of the river stone to Iggie's stories."
- Uncle Iggie dies; once his partner Jiro dies, the 265 netsuke will be given to the author, Edmund
- origin of the netsuke: bought in late 1800's by author's great-grandfather's cousin Charles (lived in Odessa); bought the netsuke in Paris (remember Monet; in love with everything Japanese); later gave them to his cousin, author's great-grandfather Viktor as a wedding present ~ 1900, probably in Vienna; great-grandfather of author was Viktor von Ephrussi; netsuke: bought in Paris, then to Vienna, then to Tokyo; now in London
- the netsuke's first home: Charle's study overlooking the rue de Monceau in the Hotel Ephrussi
- Charles' older brother had monstrous chalet overlooking Lake Lucerne were extended family from Paris, Vienna, and Berlin would hold family reunions, generally in the summer
- this generation: Jules, Charles, Ignace were all Russian citizens
- medlar; page 16, illus edition
Part One: Paris 1871 - 1899
- Rue de Monceau; art district; Jewish district
- Hotel Ephrussi, 81 rue de Monceau: family house in Paris; also Parisian business headquarters; 8th arrondissment; Charles arrived in 1871; Monceau known as "Le West End"
- Palais Ephrussi on the Ringstrasse: Viennese business headquarters
- both built in 1871
- Franco-Prussian War: 1870
- Paris Commune: 1871
- "doing a Rothschild": the Ephrussis were "deploying" family families throughout Europe to build a dynasty; six children from two brothers
- all six children to be deployed as financiers or married into suitable Jewish dynasties (p. 29)
- Odessa: where it began: in the Pale of Settlement; the area on the western borders of imperial Russia where Jews were allowed to live
- by 1860: Ephrussis had become the greatest grain-exporters in the world
- Odessa grain: down the west shoreline of the Black Sea; to the mouth of the Danube River; to Bucharest, Romania; Belgrade, Serbia; Budapest, Hungary; Vienna; southern Germany to Alps just north of Swiss border, almost to France; near Zurich
- 1857: two elder sons were sent from Odessa to Vienna, capital city of sprawling Hapsburg Empire
- one of the sons: author's great-great-grandfather Charles -- tasked with handling Ephrussi business in Austro-Hungarian Empire; in 1871, Charles would go to Paris
- flaneurial pace (page 34)
- Caillebotte, page 35 in my edition; page 29 in library edition; Le Pont de l'Europe
- Charles: first ten years
- of his life in Odessa
- then moves to Vienna for next ten years; both families lived in same house in Vienna; two sets of siblings, cousins
- Charles with long-planned move to Paris
- now one year in Paris; starts collecting, but not netsuke
- buys a ridiculously huge Renaissance bed, a lit de parade
- first collection is totally conventional
- not yet time for netsuke
- it is in the salons that Charles is first noted; noted by novelist, diarist, collector Edmond de Goncourt in his journal
- three principal salons visited by Charles:
- Madame Straus (widow of Bizet)
- Countess Greffulhe
- Madame Madeleine Lemaire: rarefied painter of watercolors
- Mme Lemaire's Thursday salon: mentioned in an early essay of the young Marcel Proust
- you could not get across rue de Monceau on Thursdays
- journalist de Goncourt writes about Charles; a regular casanova
- gratin: the upper crust of the aristocracy
- Princess Mathilde, the niece of Bonaparte; found Charles to be her "mahout to guide her through her life" (page 48)
- Gazette des Beaux-Arts: important periodical
- no netsuke yet, but starting to buy lacquer Japanese boxes form Philippe Sichel
- Charles lover: Louise Cahen d'Anvers; wife/mother of five children
- de Goncourt records Charles and Louise where he sees them
- Charles and Louise buy Japanese black-and-gold lacquer boxes together; they start their love-affair with Japan
- they buy their first boxes from the house of Philippe Sichel
- since 1859, art from Yokohama arriving in Paris; becomes a flood by early 1870s
- a few young Japanese men start to be seen in Paris
- Japonese art was ubiquitous: Japonaiseries
- earlier collectors: Japonistes
- Charles and Louise: neo-Japonistes
- Japanese art; Monet, Mme Monet in a Japanese Dress (La Japoaise);
- Charles mentions the term Japonisme 'coined by my friend Philippe Burty' -- author thinks that's the first time that word is used in print
- Charles is very, very excited about lacquer boxes in writing that essay
- Pissarro and Monet mentioned together: page 64
- the Trocadero exhibition
- Philippe Sichel
- arrived in Japan in 1874; lacquer boxes
- "Japan was that box of sweets"
- "Japanese things carried an air of eroticised possibility"
- "And the Japanese could do erotica."
- hunted out by Degas and Manet
- "Vitrines had become essential to the witty and flirtatious intermittencies of salon life." -- page 61 in library edition; page 72 in my edition
- Charles buys 264 netsuke; a complete collection from Sichel
- figures and animals and erotica
- Charles bought a black vitrine to put them in; in their first resting place in this history
- vitrines: glass display cases; intrigue the author; page 77
- trop de verre: too much glass
- again, the word vitrine(s) pops up
- Albert Durer et ses dessings: Charles Ephrussi first "proper" book
- Laforgue: worked for Charles; author found this through a footnote in a book on Manet
- Charles: recently appointed editor fo the Gazette (wow)
- Jules Laforgue started work for Charles on July 14, 1881; one summer; one summer of Impressionism; Monet
- Charles explored a new poetic language: "guitare" -- a new kind of prose-poem
- "the yellow armchair, the red lips and blue jersey of Renoir's girl" -- page 83
- Charles very fond of Laforgue; able to get him a job in Berlin as a reader of French to the Empress
- Charles/Laforgue: 30 letters from Laforgue; published; poet's early death from TB
8. Monsieur Elstir's Asparagus
- author is still in Charle's salon at Hotel Ephrussi in Paris
- Charles passion: search for Durer's lost drawings
- mondain: worldly
- Charles new word to describe himself: vagabonding
- as editor of the Gazette, championed Degas
- first pictures in the Gazette were by Berthe Morisot
- in three years, bought forty Impressionist works, and twenty more for his Bernstein cousins in Berlin: Moristo, Cassatt, Degas, Manet, Monet, Sisley, Pissarro, and Renoir
- Charles created one of the great early collections of the Impressionists
- he was promoting the Impressionists at the time when the critics were still against them
- encouraged Madame Straus to purchase one of Monet's Nympheas
- talked with Renoir at length; with Whistler
- Proust said that many half-completed paintings were completed because of Charles' encouragement
- Charles also bought "a spectacular painting by Monet of bathers, Les Bains de la Grenouillere
- "shimmering new style of painting"
- wow, wow, wow: the description of Renoir's painting, the Luncheon of the Boating Party is a must read; pp 94 - 95
- much about artist Gustave Moreau
- Renoir: anti-semitic -- p. 101
- mentions Belle Epoque buildings in Paris; Paul Baudry; his work reviled by the Impressionists; folks liked Baudry's nudes; they still do
- author wonders about visiting all the places where Charles' paintings now hang; wow, Charles had some incredibly paintings -- p. 102
- the single asparagus painting by Manet: now in the Musee d'Orsay
- group went to the Louvre every Saturday
- Charles was becoming a public figure; 1879: become proprietor of the Gazette; helped raise money for the Louvre to purchase a Botticelli; organized exhibitions; awarded the French Legion of Honor
- Proust: a neophyte if not yet quite a friend; visited frequently; new word, empyrean, page 105
- Proust: 64 works of art that will appear later in the twelve volumes that make up A la recherche du temps perdu were illustrated in the Gazette
- Proust: a study of Ruskin; the translation has a dedication to Charles Ephrussi
- Charles and Louise still lovers; she, perhaps many lovers; Charles, perhaps bisexual
- 1889: Ephrussi et Cie prospers
- Ignace and Countess Potocka mentioned -- p. 106
- Charles, age 40; devotee of the Opera; his dog was named Carmen
- mentions Symbolist painter, Puvis de Chavannes
- 1880s: again, "it wasn't just Renoir who disliked the Jews"; anti-semitism; Ephrussi family a particular target
- mentions Michel Ephrussi: go back to family diagram; patriarch marries a second time; he is the head of the great house at Odessa, the largest grain dealers in the world; b. 1845, in 1885 would have been 40 years old;
- "speculation, making money out of money, is seen as a particular Jewish sin"; even Zionist apologists, "the Ephrussi, spekulant."
- Edouard Drumont: editor of a daily anti-Semitic newspaper; Jews = nomadic; and, thus, owed nothing to the state
- much talk about anti-Semitism; again, uses the word "vitrine" which is one of the author's favorite words
- Ephrussis marry into the Rochschilds (p. 111)
- for the first time, Jews own land; call themselves landowners; gets them in trouble
- mentions duels, a new fad (illegal); p. 113
- Ignace was an accomplished dueller, but choosing not to fight was regarded as a particularly Jewish failing
- becoming increasingly difficult to be Jewish in Paris
- October, 1891: Charles takes the netsuke to a new home, 11 avenue d'Iena; larger than the Hotel Ephrussia; more austere on the outside; it is so large that it is practically invisible
- Charles moved here with his brother Ignace (Leon's side of the family) three years after their widowed mother died; the brothers' house was torn down and rebuilt int eh 1920s
- the new area is even grander than the rue de Monceau
- the Ephrussis have been in Paris for only 20 years, but feel very, very secure
- Louise's palace was directly across the road in the rue Bassano; near the Eiffel Tower; the place to be
- Charles' taste was changing; his passion for the Japanese was being slowly overtaken; Japoaiseries was everywhere; even Proust noted it; describes the transition away from Japanese art in the drawing-room of Swann's lover, the demi-mondaine Odette, the Far East was retreating...
- Charles turned more and more to the French XVIIIth century (18th century); still has his Moreaus, Manets, Renoirs; garnitures of Sevres and Meissen porcelain; replaced his lit de parade with an Empire bed -- p. 117
- Charles, Empire: Empire is not le gout Rothschild, not Jewish. It is French.
- the netsuke are there, but Charles is growing away from them; the author is not sure the netsuke fit in at all
- they call late afternoon soirees: "five o'clocks" -- page 119; entertained the wealthy and the famous
- 1894: the start of the Dreyfus Affair; 12 years that convulsed France and polarised Paris; interesting story told on pages 121 - 122
- among Charles' friends: Degas became the most savage anti-Dreyfusard; stopped speaking to Charles and to the Jewish Pissarro; Cezanne, too, was convinced of Dreyfus's guilt; Renoir became actively hostile to Charles and his "Jew art"
- "it is almost too strange to find how interwoven Charles is with Proust's figure of Swann"
- "I knew in the broadest terms that my Charles was one of the two principal models for Proust's protagonist -- the lesser, it was said, of the two. I remember reading a dismissive remark on him ('a Polish jew ... stout, bearded and ugly, his manner was ponderous and uncouth') in the biography of Proust published by George Painter in the 1950s and taking it at face value."
- author then goes into long list of how his Charles mirrors that of Proust's protagonist
- wow, Charles conducted Queen Victoria around Paris
- age 50, Charles had stopped buying pictures, "except for a Money of the rocks at low tide at Pourville on the Normandy coast"; the author thinks that painting rather Japanese
- still editor of the Gazette
- Louise had a new lover
- Charles' first cousin in Vienna was to be married: Viktor von Ephrussi (on the Ignace side of the family)
- as a wedding gift, Charles sends Viktor "something special, a spectacular something from Paris: a black vitrine wiht green velvet shelves, and a mirrored back that reflects 264 netsuke
Part Two: Vienna, 1899 - 1938
- netsuke leave avenue d'Iena (Paris); arrive at the Palais Ephrussi in Vienna
- author now leaves Paris (after a year of "researching" Charles) and trains to Vienna
- the Palais Ephrussi is huge; makes the Paris houses of Ephrussi look demure
- the Palais is now the headquarters of Casinos Austria; 400 yards from Freud's house
- author describes the Ringstrasse; officially opened 1865; daily "Corso" around the Ringstrasse
- the Ringstrasse substantially Jewish
- Vienna: hugely Jewish by end of 19th century; assimilated; only Warsaw and Budapest in Europe with a larger Jewish population; NYC had world's largest; public life in Vienna dominated by Jews
- author notes there are three Ignace Ephrussi in this story, across three continents: youngest in the author's generation is uncle Iggie in his Tokyo flat; Charles' brother the dueling Parisian Ignace with string of love affairs; and, in Vienna we meet Baron Ignace von Ephrussi, holder of the Iron Cross Third Class....and many more military honors -- a "Ruritarian list of titles": Ignace was a founder (Grunder) of Austrian modernity; moved from Odessa as a child; with older brother Leon; Palais Ephrussi built around 1870;
- Zeus' conquests: Leda, Antiope, Danae, Europa -- page 146
- ceiling: stories from the book of Esther; Esther crowned as Queen of Persia; a Jewish story -- it is the only Jewish painting on the whole of the Ringstrasse; here on Ziostrasses is a little bit of Zion
- Ignace's three children grew up in the Palais Ephrussi: Stefan, Anna, and Viktor (the youngest; the author's great-grandfather); Stephan spends days with his father Ignace, learning grain
- Viktor: the spare son; will be the smartest; wants to become a historian; Viktor's cafe: the Griensteidl;
- again, the author speaks of Jews; in Vienna either Jewish or Viennese; begins on page 152; very, very interesting
- Vienna University was a particular hotbed of nationalism and anti-Semitism; Jews therefore became great duelers to protect themselves;
- 1899: the netsuke arrived in Vienna; already bounties for shooting Jews
- falling out in the family -- wow, the heir apparent Stefan runs off with his father's mistress; Victor inherits everything
- Viktor's fiance: Baroness Emmy Schey von Koromla; shooting parties at Kovescses, the Scheys' Czechoslovakian estate;
- Viktor, age 39, marries in 1899; she, 18, but she was in love with someone else, a playboy; as a gift receives the netsuke from his cousin Charles in Paris; his father (Ignace) dies ten weeks later; Viktor inherits Ephrussi bank; wealthy beyond belief; his great-grandparents live on the 2nd floor of the Palais; and the netsuke have a new home
- author describes Viktor's 18-y/o wife at length; charming younger brother Philippe, known as Pips (page 164); mostly her life at Schey estate; author can't get his arms around that -- Jewish hunter
- back to the story in Vienna where author feels more comfortable (compared to Kovesces, the hunting estate)
- Elisabeth, the author's grandmother, born nine months after the wedding; later, Gisela, and Ignace ("young Iggie") -- Elisabeth will be the author's mother; "young Iggie" will be the author's great uncle, a cousin of Elisabeth's, son of Viktor;
- great discussion of Vienna at fin de siecle
- Charles Ephrussi, beloved owner of the Gazette, Chevalier of the Legion d'honneur, supporter of artists...collector of the netsuke, Viktor's favorite cousin, has died on September 30, 1905, age 55 in Paris (remember: he has given the netsuke collection that was in Paris to his cousin Viktor in Vienna); Proust writes condolences to the obituarist; left his estate to his niece Fanny Reinach
- shockingly, Charle's brother Ignace Ephrussi, mondain, dueller, amateur de la feem, has also died; the three children (Elisabeth -- author's grandmother; Gisela, Iggie) given 30,000 francs
- author discusses what it means to be an assimilated Jew
- Elisabeth's memoir: 12 pages; written for her sons in the 1970s; in the memoir the author hopes to find where Emmy (Viktor's wife) hid the netsuke; long description of what he finds at Palais Ephrussi; goes on for pages;
- finally he finds the black lacquer cabinet -- as described by Uncle Iggie; the vitrine in Emmy's dressing room, with its mirrored back and 264 netsuke from cousin Charles
- makes no sense; why the netuke in a dressing room; no one comes into a dressing room;
- Emmy spent a lot of time in her dressing room; changed 3x daily
- Emmy (wife of Viktor) has lovers, also. This is not unusual in Vienna. It is slightly different from Paris; endless flirtation; in one play -- changing costumes, changing lovers, and changing hats; sex is inescapable in Vienna; prostitutes everywhere;
- again, his grandmother's lovers
- the Viennese Ephrussis have English nannies, so everything is English; the author describes the lives of the children: Elisabeth, Gisela, Ignace, and Rudolf
- subject of this chapter: from the books the children read as children
- while watching their mother get dressed on Sunday mornings, the children would be allowed to play with the netsuke
- he talks about the children playing with the netsuke; this would come from Uncle Iggy's stories in Japan
- playthings in the dressing room, but across Europe, netsuke are becoming valuable collections
- the first German history of netsuke -- illustrations; how to care for them -- Leipzig, 1905
- netsuke have lost their association with Japonisme
- begins to realize he beginning to obsess hopelessly about what is fast becoming the author's very special subject, the vitrines of the fin de siecle. On Freud's desk is a netsuke in the form of a shishi, a lion
- Japan and Vienna (p. 205)
- mentions Isaac Casaubon
- Emmy is 30 years old; reads Die Neue Freie Presse, the daily feuilleton; the author uses that word in one form or another not less than three times on one page (page 206) and then again at the top of the very next page
- 1914: Elisabeth is 14 years old; now allowed to sit with adults at dinner
- Sunday, June 28, 1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated in Sarajevo by a young Serbian nationalist; Die Neue Freie Presse writes, one day later, that 'the political consequences of this act are being greatly exaggerated'; Thursday: German support for Austria against Serbia
- Franz Josef I -- very elderly by this time
- Austria declares war on Serbia (July 28)
- Germany declares war on Russia (Aug 1)
- Germany declares war on France (Aug 3)
- Germany invades neutral Belgium (Aug 4)
- the whole deck of cards falls; alliances are invoked; Britain declares war on Germany
- Austria declares war on Russia (Aug 6)
- military call-ups; the Ephrussis -- in Vienna -- are in the wrong country (they are lucky they are not in Russia?)
- Hotel Sacher mentioned, page 215
- describes the Schottengymnasium where Iggie attends school; girls not allowed, so Elisabeth has private tutor
- Jews streaming into Vienna, many from Galicia (between Poland and Ukraine) -- although not mentioned one would think that the Pale of Settlement would include this area; the Russians drove out the Jews in Galicia
- Elisabeth is now almost 16; Gisela, 11; Iggie is 9; Iggie starts to drive dresses
- Franz Josef I dies, November 21, 1916; 86 years old; on the throne since 1848 (spanned US Civil War to WWI); Elisabeth is now a young woman, age 16
- many names for profiteer, but increasingly they elide: hoarder, usurer, Ostjude, Galician, Jew
- increasing demonstrations against the Jews
- Austrian desertions multiply; much of the Hapsburg Army surrenders; 2.2 million are taken prisoner; 17x more than British soldiers who are POWs
- November 3, 1917: Austro-Hungarian Empire is dissolved
- November 4, 1917: Austria signs armistice with the Allies
- November 12, 1917: Austria becomes a republic
- influenza raging; Emmy gives birth to Rudolf Josef
- Elisabeth remembers very little about the war; she had been accepted to the university
- Austria plummets in size; from 52 million to 2 million
- the 'Carthaginian Peace' of 1919
- author describes how Austria changed after the war -- no more imperial titles, no more Ritter, Baron, Graf, Furst, Herzog
- anti-Semitism gained even more ground following the war; remember Hitler's coming of age years in this environment; born in Linz, Austria, b. 1889; moved to Germany in 1913 (24 years of age; joins German army in WWI; so now he was about 30 years old
- the Ephrussis lose almost everything due to terms of the armistice; bank still viable but needed a partner (the Gutmanns)
- mentions Monet's willows overhanging a river bank -- wow, we saw that at the Kimball Museum exhibit: Money: The Early Years; in 2016
- author talks of losing things -- page 248
- 1919: Elisabeth's first term at university (remember, Elisabeth is Edmund's (the author's) grandmother; will study philosophy, law, economics -- very Jewish choice -- all disciplines had strong Jewish presences in the faculty; passion for poetry; in love with lyric poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
- Rilke: Rodin's amanuensis in Paris -- wow; Elisabeth traveled to Musee Rodin after the war to pay homage to Rilke -- as you read the author's comment about Rilke, you see glimpses of Impressionism -- page 251
- author: he did not know until his grandmother's death at age 92 how important Rilke was to his grandmother -- page 253; close family connection to Rilke -- see page 253
- Elisabeth wrote to Rilke in the summer of 1921 -- correspondence between the 20-y/o Vienna student and the 50-y/o Swiss poet
- it strike me: Elisabeth studying law with a passion for poetry! Who does this sound like? Yes, Dr Zhivago: studied medicine with a passion for poetry!
- author recalls when, at 14, he sent poetry to Elisabeth, when she was 80
- the three older children leave Vienna; Elisabeth is first to go
- 1922: Elisabeth, PhD, poet and lawyer; the author's grandmother
- 1924: Elisabeth: among the first women to be awarded a doctorate in law from University of Vienna; off to America on a Rockefeller scholarship; when she returns, she moves to Paris; son Victor (author's father) is born; Elisabeth's husband Henk has converted to Mennonite; Elisabeth comfortable of her Jewishness but considering conversion; both go to Anglican Church in Paris; ultimately ends up in Switzerland
- the C. Ephrussi Collection of Manets, Monets, and Degas in the Jeu de Paume on the edge of the Tuileries gardens
- Gisela marries; moves to Madrid
- wow, wow, wow -- Ignace -- lost, banker, seamstress, "to NYC, to the boys"; then, Hollywood; and ends up in Japan, of all places and that's where the author eventually finds him
- Iggie had trained as banker in Frankfurt; worst place for a Jew; Nazis growing; Hitler gains; Reichstag fire, 1933; preventive detention for Jews in new detention camps; largest was Dachau on edge of Bavaria; Iggie, 28, at this time
- Eldorado 5 -- 0050: phone number of designer on 5th Avenue, NYC and Iggie
- much discussion about Iggie's fashion design, pp. 268 - 270
- 1934: the three children are dispersed -- Elisabeth in Switzerland in the Alps; Anna back in Vienna; Ignaci (Iggi) designing cruise-wear in Hollywood; Anna had to leave Spain due to Spanish civil war
- by end of chapter, Viktor is 78 (remember, he was likely the model for Proust's Swann); still in Vienna; very concerned about direction of politics, Germany and Austria
Part Three: Vienna, Kovescses, Tunbridge Wells, Vienna 1938 - 1947
- March 11, 1938 -- the last day of Austria's freedom; German troops massing on the border, facing an ultimatum; Viktor, Emmy, and Rudolf in Vienna, listening; Anna back in Vienna
- March 12, 1938: 1:08 a.m. -- the announcement that Austria is national socialist, one with Germany's Hitler
- house has been breached; much destroyed; Anna helps parents clean up;
- March 14, 1938: Hitler arrives; mass demonstrations in support of Hitler; says new vote on whether Austria joins Germany; mass deportations to Dachau begin -- p. 287
- March 31, 1938: Jewish organizations no longer recognized under Austrian law
- April 9, 1938: Hitler visits Vienna; Goebbels proclaims Greater German Reich; formal recognition of the Anschluss
- April 23, 1938: boycott of German shops announced; Gestapo arrive at the Palais Ephrussi;
- Viktor and (fourth child) Rudolf are arrested; Emmy allowed to stay; after Palais Ephrussi searched by Gestapo; sign document turning everything over to regime or be shipped to Dachau; Viktor signs everything over to regime; takes effect April 27, 1938; Palais Ephrussi being stripped of art objects -- "a never-to-be repeated opportunity" to seize incredibly good art; much of the art is sold to private individuals to raise money for the Reich; Viktor/Rudolph released after three days
- August 12, 1938: Ephrussi and Co. "erased" -- taken off the business register; new name: Bankhaus CA Steinhausser; the Ephrussi family has been cleansed from the city
- all Jewish men must take new first name, "Israel"; all Jewish women must take new first name, "Sara"
- Viktor is 78; begins the bureaucratic hell of trying to get visa to leave country; Anschluss only six weeks old; Rudolf is 19 years old; gains permission to emigrate to the US; a job in Bertig Cotton company in Paragould, Arkansas; back at the house, Viktor, Emma, and servant Anna
- Viktor and Emmy reach Kovecses, Czechoslovakia, May, 1938; the story how Elisabeth came back and helped them, page 304
- children dispersed: Elisabeth in Switzerland; Gisela in Mexico; Iggie and Rudolf in America
- Germany/Hitler claim Sudetenland; Germans just 20 miles from Kovecses;
- Emmy dies October 12, 1938; unable to go on; suicide; overdose of heart pills -- age 59 -- hmmm; this is still only 1938
- Kristallnacht; night of terror; 680 Jews commit suicide in Vienna; Vienna sounds like Aleppo (2016) in a different sort of way
- March, 1939, Elisabeth leaves Switzerland, for England
- March, 1939, Viktor leaves Kovecses, for England
- Viktor and Elisabeth in Tunbridge Wells, London; Henk has booked them all rooms; Henk, Elisabeth's husband, a Mennonite
- And then, February, 1944: Iggie turns up in Tunbridge Wells in his American uniform, an intelligence officer wiht the 7th Corps Headquarters. Ignace (Iggie) and Rudolph, brothers, both sons of Viktor, have taken American citizenship to enlist in the army; Rudolph in Virginia in Juy 1941, and Iggie in California, in January, 1942, a month after Pearl Harbor
- March 12, 1945: Viktor dies; a month before Vienna was liberated by the Russians and two months before the unconditional surrender of the German High Command; he was 84; born Odessa; died Tunbridge Wells; reads his death certificate
- Viktor's grave is in the municipal cemetery in Charing, far from his mother's in Vichy; furthest from Kovecses
- page 278: Anna gives Elisabeth the 264 Japanese netsuke; the third resting-place in the story of the netsuke
- December 1, 1947: Iggie to HQ Tokyo; has the netsuke with him, the fourth resting-place of the netsuke; in a vitrine, again
- fifth resting-place will be in London, at the Victoria and Albert Museum
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