Last summer, I stumbled upon a pink book by Edmund de Waal, a famous contemporary pottery maker, at the Danish Clay Museum in Funen, Denmark. I knew I had to read that book. The author’s research on a collection of Japanees’ so-called Netsukes in his possession led him to the original owner, Charles Ephrussi (born 1849 in Odessa, died 1906 in Paris). Charles was a cousin to Edmund’s grandmother’s father. Charles came from a wealthy Jewish family in Odessa. He and his family came to Paris in the last part of the 19th century, and some settled in Vienna. Charles and his siblings and cousins spoke many languages.
After the Second World War, only the tiny Netsukes were still in the family. Many of their possessions were stolen by the Nazis.
Charles spent his life collecting Art and eventually became the editor and co-owner of Le Gazette des Beaux-Arts.
Reading Edmund de Waal’s book on his family story, I realised I had a booklet on the Renoir painting The Luncheon of the Boat Party, where Charles Eprussi is present.
In 1885, Ephrussi became co-owner of the Gazette.
Quote from https://arthistorians.info/ephrussic/
Ephrussi reviewed Impressionist exhibitions, eventually acquiring over forty works by Morisot, Cassatt, Degas, Manet, Monet, Sisley, Pissarro and Renoir. He appears in a top hat behind the guests in Renoir’s “Le déjeuner des canotiers” (the “Luncheon of the Boating Party”). In 1885,
Charles Ephrussi is the man with the black top hat speaking to his young editor, Jules Laforgue.
Renoir painted Ephrussi deliberately differently from the other guests!
During the years of the Dreyfuss affair, where Dreyfuss, a Jewish general, was falsely accused of spying for the Germans, Ephrussi and his family also suffered from antisemitism. Degas and Renoir turned their backs on Charles Ephrussi.
Today, whenever there is an exhibition somewhere with the Impressionists, people gather in crowds to get a ticket. Would they have gained the same popularity if art dealers like Charles Ephrussi had not bought their works?
Jews were persecuted for their skills,
their race and now for their land.
