The Hare With Amber Eyes. A Hidden Inheritance: The Illustrated Edition

De Waal, Edmund

ISBN 10: 0701187166 / ISBN 13: 9780701187163

Published by Chatto & Windus, London, 2011

About this Item

418 pages. A first edition / first printing of the illustrated edition. A biographical work about a leading ceramic artist and netsukes. A clean and sound copy with some shelf wear externally. All orders processed promptly and shipped from the UK.

Seller Inventory # 024903

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Hare With Amber Eyes. A Hidden Inheritance: The Illustrated Edition
• Publisher: Chatto & Windus, London
• Publication Date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0701187166
• ISBN 13: 9780701187163
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Seller catalogs:
  • Art, Fine Art, Catalogues
  • Antiques and Collectables
  • Biography

About this title

Synopsis

The definitive illustrated edition of the international bestseller with gorgeous new photography of the celebrated netsuke collection, and sumptuous full-colour images hand-picked by Edmund de Waal from his family archive264 Japanese wood and ivory carvings, none of them bigger than a 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 siècle Paris, from occupied Vienna to post-war Tokyo, Edmund de Waal traces the netsuke's journey through generations of his remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century.

Review

Amazon Best of the Month, September 2010: At the heart of Edmund de Waal's strange and graceful family memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes, is a one-of-a-kind inherited collection of ornamental Japanese carvings known as netsuke. The netsuke are tiny and tactile--they sit in the palm of your hand--and de Waal is drawn to them as "small, tough explosions of exactitude." He's also drawn to the story behind them, and for years he put aside his own work as a world-renowned potter and curator to uncover the rich and tragic family history of which the carvings are one of the few concrete legacies. De Waal's family was the Ephrussis, wealthy Jewish grain traders who branched out from Russia across the capitals of Europe before seeing their empire destroyed by the Nazis. Beginning with his art connoisseur ancestor Charles (a model for Proust's Swann), who acquired the netsuke during the European rage for Japonisme, de Waal traces the collection from Japan to Europe--where they were saved from the brutal bureaucracy of the Nazi Anschluss in the pockets of a family servant--and back to Japan and Europe again. Throughout, he writes with a tough, funny, and elegant attention to detail and personality that does full justice to the exactitude of the little carvings that first roused his curiosity. --Tom Nissley