The House of Fragile Things Audiobook Libro.fm

Description

A powerful history of Jewish art collectors in France and how an embrace of art and beauty was met with hatred and destruction

In the dramatic years between 1870 and the end of World War II a number of prominent French Jewspillars of an embattled communityinvested their fortunes in Frances cultural artifacts sacrificed their sons to the countrys army and were ultimately rewarded by seeing their collections plundered and their families deported to Nazi concentration camps

In this rich evocative account James McAuley explores the central role that art and material culture played in the assimilation and identity of French Jews in the findesicle Weaving together narratives of various figures some familiar from the works of Marcel Proust and the diaries of Jules and Edmond Goncourtthe Camondos the Rothschilds the Ephrussis the Cahens dAnversMcAuley shows how Jewish art collectors contended with a powerful strain of antiSemitism they were often accused of invading Frances cultural patrimony The collections these families left behindmany ultimately donated to the French statewere their response tragic attempts to celebrate a nation that later betrayed them