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Hare with amber eyes netsuke figurine
The De Waal family’s honey-eyed rabbit “netsuke.” (Photo: De Waal Family Collection. Courtesy Jewish Museum)

Visualizing a Family History by Gathering Fractured Pieces of the Past

At New York’s Jewish Museum, “The Hare with Amber Eyes” traces the story of artist Edmund de Waal’s family through objects, ephemera, and netsuke figurines.
By Meaghan McGovern
November 8, 2021
3 minute read
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“The Hare with Amber Eyes” (on view Nov. 19, 2021, through May 15, 2022) is a remarkable, meditative exhibition at New York’s Jewish Museum based on the New York Times bestselling family memoir of the same name by London-based artist, author, and master potter Edmund de Waal (who was the guest on Ep. 99 of our At a Distance podcast). The show traces the history and migration of the artist’s relatives, who descended from Charles Ephrussi—a Paris-based art historian and collector whose family rose to prominence in the first half of the 19th century and lost its fortune to Nazi looting during World War II—and contemplates the ways in which objects can serve as vessels for human narratives, symbols of resilience, and markers of an enduring familial legacy.

#Museums#Exhibitions#History

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