The Hare With Amber Eyes

Traveling to France, de Waal visits Charles Ephrussi’s first home in Paris, the Hôtel Ephrussi on Rue de Monceau. The street is lined with neoclassical mansions, and the Hôtel is one of the most beautiful buildings, with a honey-colored facade. Charles and his brother Ignace had separate suites on the second floor, while their elder brother, Jules, lived below with their widowed mother, Mina. The building now belongs to a medical insurance company, and de Waal follows a courier inside. The glass dome that once covered the Hôtel’s courtyard no longer exists, but the interior remains tastefully grand.

The Ephrussi family’s wealth sprang from the entrepreneurialism of Charles’s Russian grandfather, Charles Joachim Ephrussi. A grain merchant who lived in the Jewish settlement of Odessa, he bought and exported Ukrainian wheat. From humble origins, he became one of the world’s largest cereal exporters. Charles Joachim’s ambitions mirrored those of another Jewish family, the Rothschilds. He aimed to develop valuable social connections and establish banking networks across Europe. To further this plan, he sent his sons to Europe to become financiers.

In 1857, the Ephrussi brothers and their families moved to Vienna, then part of the powerful Austro-Hungarian Empire. The large household included Charles Joachim’s eldest son, Leon, his wife Mina, and their children: Jules, Ignace, Charles, and Betty. Leon’s younger brother, Ignace, his wife Emilie, and their three children (Stefan, Anna, and Viktor) also lived there. All the children were fluent in French, German, and English, and were forbidden to speak the Yiddish they had learned in Odessa. The older boys (Jules, Ignace, and Stefan) went with their fathers to the Ephrussi offices, while the youngest cousins, Charles and Viktor, stayed at home. Charles was charming, bookish, and enjoyed sketching. Neither he nor Viktor showed an interest in business.

Leon and his family relocated to Paris to expand the family’s business interests. In 1871, the Ephrussis had two opulent homes built in new districts largely inhabited by wealthy Jewish families: the Hôtel Ephrussi on Rue de Monceau in Paris and the Palais Ephrussi on the Ringstrasse in Vienna. Leon erected a family tomb in the Jewish section of Montmartre’s cemetery when Betty died.

During a Grand Tour of Italy, 21-year-old Charles Ephrussi became a collector, buying Renaissance art, sculpture, and a large, elaborate Renaissance bed. Reading the inventory of his purchases, de Waal reflects that Charles was “too rich for his own good” (44). The author decides to familiarize himself with Charles by reading everything he wrote. He spends several weeks reading Charles’s essays, noting that they show intelligence and a growing depth of art appreciation.

Leon’s eldest son, Jules, became head of Ephrussi & Co. and married Fanny Pfeiffer. Meanwhile, the middle son, Ignace, gained notoriety for his scandalous love affairs and duels with rivals. While researching a book on the German artist Albrecht Dürer, Charles regularly visited the offices of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts and began writing for the publication. His regular attendance at fashionable Paris salons was noted by two novelists: Edmond de Goncourt and Marcel Proust. In his journal, de Goncourt expressed disgust that Jews had been permitted access to the salons and was critical of Charles’s friendship with the influential aristocrat, Princess Mathilde. De Goncourt also wrote scathingly about Charles’s affair with a married woman.

Charles’s lover was Countess Louise Cahen d’Anvers. Married to a Jewish banker and the mother of five children, Louise shared Charles’s interest in collecting Japanese lacquer boxes. Japanese art had become highly fashionable since its first arrival in Europe in the 1850s. The artists Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, and Claude Monet became avid collectors. Japanese objets d’art were often highly tactile, featuring materials and textures never seen in Europe before.

European art collectors were transfixed by the “exoticism” of Japanese art. At social gatherings, netsuke collections were often taken out of their vitrines (glass display cases) and passed around. Erotic netsuke were particularly popular.

Charles bought a collection of 264 netsuke and a black vitrine to display them.

Charles became the editor of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts and a respected art historian. The letters of Charles’s personal secretary, Jules Laforgue, describe his employer’s study. Charles was surrounded by color and art as he worked. His armchair was yellow, and the netsuke were displayed alongside a collection of Impressionist art.

In Charles’s book on Dürer, he describes “vagabonding” across Europe in search of drawings by the artist. De Waal observes that the description makes light of exceptionally thorough research. Charles was an early advocate for the Impressionist painters at a time when much of the established art world failed to recognize their merit. Over three years, he bought 40 Impressionist paintings, including works by Degas, Manet, and Monet and by Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Alfred Sisley, Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Charles befriended many of the artists, and illustrated his generosity as a patron by paying over the asking price for a Manet still life of a bunch of asparagus. As thanks, Manet sent Charles a second painting of one asparagus stalk that had “slipped from the bundle” (88). Renoir’s Le Dejeuner des canotiers depicts Charles among a group of people at a restaurant by the Seine. Standing at the back of the picture, he wears a top hat, and his head is slightly turned away from the viewer.

Charles commissioned Renoir to paint Louise Cahen d’Anvers and her daughters. He also began collecting the paintings of the Symbolist artist Gustave Moreau, signaling a shift in artistic taste. Renoir was scathingly critical of Moreau’s work and of Charles’s enthusiasm for it, suggesting that the artist used gold colours specifically to appeal to Jews. By age 40, Charles was the owner of the Gazette.

During the 1880s, antisemitism grew in Paris, and Jewish financiers were frequently its target. Jewish families were accused of plotting together to make greater profits and intermarrying to gain further power. Edouard Drumont, the editor of an antisemitic newspaper, depicted the Jewish people as a threat to French society. His inflammatory articles emphasized how the Jewish families who owned many of France’s grandest properties originated from the “ghettos” of other European countries. Drumont accused Charles of having an interest in only the financial value of art.

After their mother died in 1891, Charles and his brother Ignace moved to a larger property on the Avenue d’Léna. By this time, Japanese items were so common that they were considered “bric-a-brac.” Charles filled his new home with 18th-century French art and furniture.

In 1894, the Dreyfus Affair divided French opinion. Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer, was accused of being a spy and found guilty on forged evidence. The decision inspired Émile Zola’s famous appeal to the French President, “J’accuse,” denouncing the systemic antisemitism that Dreyfus’s conviction exposed. The long campaign to have Dreyfus retried prompted accusations that French Jews were attempting to pervert the course of justice. Dreyfus was reconvicted three times, and Zola fled to England after being convicted of libel. The Ephrussi family’s pro-Dreyfus stance prompted Charles’s artist friends Degas, Cezanne, and Renoir to turn against him. Proust portrayed this shift of opinion in his novel Swann’s Way: In Search of Lost Time. Charles was one of two individuals who inspired the character of Swann, a Jewish art collector and patron whose social standing becomes precarious when antisemitic sentiment erupts during the Dreyfus Affair.

By the time Charles was 50, he had developed a heart condition and stopped purchasing art. Louise Cahen d’Anvers had moved on to a younger lover, Crown Prince Alphonse of Spain. In 1899, Charles’s youngest cousin, Viktor, married Baroness Emmy Schey von Koromla. Jules and Fanny sent a Louis XVI dressing table as a wedding gift, while Ignace gifted them a Dutch Old Master painting. Charles sent 264 netsuke in a black vitrine.