The Hare With Amber Eyes

The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal is a
non-fiction book about the history of the Ephrussi family
dynasty and their collection of Japanese curios known as
netsuke. The Ephrussi familys wealth was built on their
grain oil and banking businesses in Odessa Ukraine and
expanded to cities including Vienna Paris London and
Athens. At the height of the Japanese art craze in Paris
Charles Ephrussi purchased a collection of 264 hand-carved
netsuke which was given as a wedding gift to his niece and
nephew. The netsuke collection was saved from Nazi
confiscation by their housemaid Anna and eventually made
its way to Tokyo with Ignace Ephrussi and to London where
it currently resides with the author of the book who is
the grandson of Elisabeth Ephrussi De Waal and the nephew
of Ignace. The book was published in 2010 by Vintage Books
and is one of ten books written by the author who is a
potter by trade and has a degree in literature from
Cambridge. De Waal lives with his wife and three children
in London.