A surprising art inheritance: Odessa, Paris, Vienna

When I read Edmund de Waal's book The Hare with Amber Eyes, it might have been my own family's story. After all I am an art historian, my mother’s family came from Odessa, we are Jewish and we collect the family photos and letters that survived World War Two. So in reading this book, I had to be very careful not to be sucked in at a personal level.

The Ephrussi family lived in Jewish Odessa and made their considerable money from grain exporting and later banking. Cultivated, educated people, they created lovely homes for the family in Vienna, Tokyo and Paris. The most exciting part of the family’s history was undoubtedly when one branch of the family left moved to Belle Epoque Paris. This was the time they mixed with artists, writers and cultural salons. Great great uncle of the author, Charles Ephrussi, was a particular friend of the Impressionists Renoir and Degas, and apparently was the inspiration for Marcel Proust’s Charles Swann.

de Waal's book, published 2010

It was also the time (1870s) when the family bought hundreds of tiny Japanese netsukes; great uncle Charles Ephrussi, carried away with Paris’ passion for Japonisme, bought the objects. The tiny art treasures were kept in a black lacquer case and later posted to Vienna as a wedding present for a cousin Viktor.

The other half of the family settled in Vienna. And there was nothing too shabby about early 20th century Vienna either - this elegant, cultivated family in a totally acculturated cosmopolitan city. Life must have been lovely at chez Ephrussi on the very famous Ringstrasse. The family held large dinner parties and balls, wore fine clothes, and Viktor gained enormous pleasure gathering together impressive collections of books and art.

Only with the 1938 Anschluss in Vienna did this established Jewish family realise that their money and their education would not save their lives or their homes. I am not clear why the netsuke survived the Anschluss when every other treasure was stolen or destroyed, although answers have been offered. Still, God certainly worked in mysterious ways.

one of Charles Ephrussi's netsukes, up to 4cm high

With the Anschluss in Vienna, the Ephrussi family went into exile or died. After the war Viktor’s daughter Elizabeth (de Waal's grand-mother) returned to Vienna from Britain to discover what remained of the family and their vast treasures. Only the netsuke survived.

In 1947 Elizabeth's brother Ignace visited her in Britain, before his next posting in Japan on behalf of an international grain exporter. While Viennese uncle Ignace might have been a stranger in Japan, he took the netsuke with him... and the netsuke were going "home".

It wasn't until the early 1990s that young British author Edmund de Waal inherited the very same collection of Japanese netsuke, whilst he was studying in Japan. The netsuke he inherited were tiny, detailed and carefully crafted carvings of animals and humans from his Uncle Ignace. In the book, Edmund described how he left on a journey of discovery, to investigate his family’s history and the importance or otherwise of Ignace’s netsuke. At least one carving always kept de Waal company while he was travelling: an immediate connection with his family’s past.

Personally I would not have chosen netsuke to engage the hearts and minds of readers, because few people I know love them passionately. But Edmund’s relatives didn’t collect Huguenot silver objects or Meissen porcelain – or if they did, they were destroyed during the war.

The book was a record of de Waal’s journey, both geographical and emotional. Historians always read old letters and chronicles, and visit old homes, but it must have been more difficult when the people involved were direct family. Catastrophic events overtook previous generations and although the author manages to keep it under control, I wonder if the reader does.

In general people know their parents’ stories and they may know their grandparents’ stories, but otherwise a good historian should rely on primary sources.  Hare with Amber Eyes relied on primary sources and felt more like an authentic journal and less like a novel, as a result.

The family's homes: the very lovely Hotel Ephrussi in Paris (above) 
and the even lovelier Palais Ephrussi Vienna (below)

 
The netsuke were created in Japan, got auctioned in France, were posted to Austria, got carried to Britain, were gifted back to Japan and ended up in Britain. Thus the netsuke could be seen as a metaphor for the wandering Jewish family. de Waal appropriately stated "I want to know what the relationship has been between this wooden object that I am rolling between my fingers and where it has been." I would be more specific and ask "which other family fingers have rolled this object and what were their lives like?"

Emanata saw how the works were passed from one member of the family to the next, and how they came to mean something different to each successive owner. Thus, he asks, how did each inheritor reinvent the collection to suit his or her own interests and needs?

The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance, by Edmund de Waal, Chatto & Windus in 2010.

Asylum seekers & refugees, Australia's future or destroyers?

I am really exasperated by the vitriol expressed towards refugees sailing in tiny boats towards Australia and the so-called people smugglers who bring them here on those boats. Australia is a migrant nation... that is what we do.. we offer a new chance at life to people caught up in wars, poverty and oppression overseas. Of course I can differentiate between refugees with visas and those without, but every single person in Australia has come from somewhere else. Or if not us, then our parents or grandparents. We know what desperation is.

In Israel, Singapore or Malta, if they accepted one more refugee, the poor newcomers might have to sleep in tents. There is no more space to put new arrivals! But Australia is a huge continent. Of course we want to accept newcomers in an orderly fashion and we want to assure ourselves that the refugees are truly escaping death and oppression, so security checks are indeed essential. But rejecting people because Australia doesn't have the space or the wealth to absorb new families is absurd. And immoral.

refugees arrive in a small boat

Eamine the language in a newpaper article, WAtoday: Huge wave of refugees predicted (headline 28th/3/2011). "Indonesian police intelligence suggests between 7000 and 10,000 more people are waiting in Malaysia to make the journey once their passage is organised by people smugglers. There is a large network of people smugglers servicing the 1 million Indonesian illegal workers who regularly go back and forth between the two countries by boat. These same networks also help arrange passage to Australia. On Saturday, Malaysian authorities arrested 36 Afghans and six Pakistanis being smuggled to Australia via Indonesia".

Note the nasty language - "huge wave", "people smugglers", "large network", "illegal workers", "Indonesians, Afghans and Pakistanis". I wonder if newspapers would use this language about Dutch, British or Swiss citizens.  Worse than racist, the language has rather nasty theories/myths embedded just below the surface:
Myth 1 - Refugees arriving by boats are queue jumpers stopping legitimate asylum seekers from gaining entry.
Myth 2 - Refugees are terrorists or potential terrorists.
Myth 3 - The number of 'boat people' and refugees in general is huge and growing.
Myth 4 - Boat owners who carry asylum seekers to Australia are evil, satanic and greedy.

Presentations in Melbourne on this topic are essential.

People Smugglers: Friend or Foe?
Exhibition Opening Sunday 10th April, 3 – 5pm
Liberty Victoria and Amnesty International present a new exhibition that looks at the issue of people smuggling through the eyes of refugees. In a series of interviews, people from all over the world discuss how they came to Australia and the role people smugglers played in their journey. This exhibition explores the moral complexities of the people smuggling trade. At the same time, it looks at the positive impact refugees have had on Australian society from the Second World War to the present day.

Date: Sunday 10 April – Sunday 8 May 2011
Time: Opening from 3 – 5pm
For more information please visit Liberty Victoria online.
Please RSVP to the opening by Wednesday 6 April: marketing@jewishmuseum.com.au


Finding Refuge: Coming to Australia as an Asylum Seeker
In association with their exhibition People Smugglers: Friend or Foe, Liberty Victoria presents this open discussion, which will explore the difficult issue of people smuggling. Several refugees will tell their stories and give their perspective on whether they see smugglers as good, bad or indifferent. There should be a lively debate to follow the panel discussion.

Date: Thursday 28 April 2011
Venue: The Jewish Museum of Australia

Time: 7.30pm

To be pro-active, sign a partition to help our fellow humans.
We Need to Talk About Human Rights Petition | GoPetition

The finest silver art objects in European history?

Augsburg may well have been shaped by the trade in salt and silver in Roman times and by its sophisticated canal system, but Roman wealth was not enough to explain the demand for silver and gold art in Renaissance Augsburg.

The route to Rome developed, over the centuries, into a main trading route, linking Augsburg to other trading towns. After all, Augsburg was located in the south of Germany, not very far from the modern borders with Austria (to the east) and Switzerland (to the west).

By 1276 trade and banking were so important to this otherwise ordinary town that the good burghers of Ausburg were able to make their home into a Free Imperial City. The local municipal government was able to make its own plans, raise its own taxes and legislate for its own laws.

 gilt silver, embossed dish made by Abraham Waremberger with Roman emperor busts

Money was being made hand over fist and you can see that Maximilian Street, bordered on both sides by the original stately homes, witnessed the city's affluence in the days of the famous Fugger, Peutinger, Welser and other famous merchant families. I say “famous”, but for the purposes of this post I should have said “rich”. So let us include some of the important banking families: the Baumgartners, Herwarts and Höchstetters.

But power was being distributed more widely than expected; Augsburg's guild constitution provided that all the craft guilds were to send representatives to the Great and Small Councils. Although the patricians retained the mayoral position, the guilds actually shared power with the Great and Good Families. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, the Augsburg economy boomed because of its export of gold and silver art, armour, the establishment of textile manufacturing, and the city's continuing role in banking and finance.

nautilus cup with silver gilt mount, by Ulrich Ment, c1623, now in Galerie J Kugel, Paris

Wealthy, cultivated and powerful families became wonderful patrons of gold and silver art objects. And the demand must have been endless. Even when Augsburg had only 30,000 inhabitants, some 260-275 of them were occupied full time as master gold and silversmiths.

Although the objects were for domestic use rather than for public use, these objects still had to be grand enough to decorate halls designed for solemn ceremonies, large receptions and sumptuous banquets. Examine, for example, the gilt silver dish made and embossed by Abraham Waremberger in Augsbug. I would love to know just how heavy and how broad this dish really was.

Some art objects were clearly ceremonial or decorative, but not necessarily functional. A nautilus cup with silver gilt mount, made by Ulrich Ment in Augsburg during the early 1620s, had the outer layer of the shell removed to reveal the lustrous inner layer.  Sometimes the ornate lids of nautilus cups were detachable, as was the case with other forms of covered ceremonial drinking cups. But even then, I wouldn’t have allowed my teenage sons to play soccer in the dining room.

And not just private families. In 2008, The Moscow Kremlin organised an exhibition of 500 Augsburg masterpieces, often given as ambassadorial gifts by the representatives of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Holy Roman Empire, Denmark and Sweden. The display included gold and silver trays, tankards, ewers and decorative sculptures that were placed near fireplaces, all of which glorified Augsburg and its silversmiths, and thrilled the recipients. A lidded silver jug, made by Melhior Gelb in the c1654, was decorated with embossing and pouncing. This was an ambassadorial gift, brought by King Charles X Gustav of Sweden, in 1655. A silver double goblet, made in Augsburg between 1576-1583, displayed casting, embossing and pouncing.

lidded silver jug, by Melhior Gelb, c1654

In Augsburg itself, the place to visit would be The Maximilian Museum. It displays many fine exhibits from the city's great silver- and goldsmith artists. And for a very useful reference, see Lorenz Seelig Silver and Gold: Courtly Splendour from Augsburg (Art & Design), Prestel, 1995.

Patrician family homes, Maximilianstrasse Augsburg, C16th and C17th

Rembrandt and colleagues: the Book of Esther

Triumph of Mordechai, by Pieter Lastman, 1624

Between 1624-1685, Rembrandt van Rijn, his colleagues and then his students created scenes from the Book of Esther. They took their themes from various stages in the Esther story, intense, full of imminent danger, sometimes highly decorative. The paintings were almost all of fine quality, so my research questions published in The Jewish Magazine, Feb 2008 did not deal with connoisseurship. Rather I was asking what was the endless appeal of this slightly obscure, historically questionable post-Biblical Jewish story to a particular group of 17th century Dutch Christian artists?

Calvinist collectors in the Dutch Republic WERE often very interested in Old Testament art; Calvin had advocated careful study of the biblical narrative, from both Testaments equally. But a general interest in Biblical stories does not explain why the Book of Esther, in particular, was popular. There have been three main reasons offered to explain the popularity of the Purim story:

Esther Accuses Haman, by Jan Lievens, 1625

1.)  The Netherlands had a free open market, religious tolerance and a broad intellectual life (Brown et al 1992). Jewish merchant families had both the finances and the taste to live well and to buy art for their increasingly attractive homes. Naturally they would want to buy narrative tales based on much loved  Old Testament stories.

What was Jewish Holland like? The Dutch East India Co., founded in 1602, had a monopoly on all profits from trade east of the Cape of Good Hope. Lisbon had been conquered by the Spanish so the Dutch had to find their own way to the East for spices. Luckily the Portuguese Jews, who'd fled their country, brought a great deal of experience and expertise with them. Eventually the Dutch East India Co. became a public company, and commerce expanded to the extent that the Dutch Republic was culturally and economically the most flourishing country in Europe. And by then, Dutch Jews were allowed to practise their religion. They lived their lives openly, surrounded by all the religious and community facilities they required.

Haman Begging for Mercy, by Rembrandt, 1655

Artists had long painted Old Testament stories, but often from a Christological point of view i.e Old Testament stories were only important in as far as they could prefigure New Testament events. Yes Rembrandt painted many New Testament scenes, but they were not full of explicitly Christian symbolism. No crucified Christs, weeping Madonnas or vengeful Jewish onlookers. Dutch Jews at last found paintings they could buy and be proud of.

2.) In 1609 King Philip III of Spain agreed only to a 12 years' truce with the Netherlands. Freedom for the tiny Dutch nation arrived, after 30 miserable years of war. But the Netherlands were still at risk. Renewed in 1621 as part of the wider European conflict of the 30 Years' War, the Dutch battle for independence was continued until 1648. Via the Peace of Westphalia, Spain finally and formally recognised the independence of the United Provinces.

The Dutch, well versed in the Bible, saw themselves as The New Israel and their tiny country was likened to the land of Canaan. The leaders of the revolt in the Netherlands became identified in general with Biblical heroes, while the Spanish appeared to them like tyrants eg Pharaoh, Haman and Nebuchadnezzar. Every Dutch citizen would have either remembered the tragic war against Spain from his own experience or would have remembered his parents' stories. By celebrating the original Purim story, tiny Netherlands could explain God's miracle in their own generation.

Consider the timing of the emergence of Queen Esther paintings in the Netherlands. After only 12 years of independence, by 1621 the Dutch could see their freedom at risk again. Purim stories appeared there for the very first time in 1624 and 1625, by Lastman, Lievens and others. The audience could easily recognise the figure of Haman, with his idolatrous demands, as a representation of the hated Spanish. Esther and Mordechai were clearly personifications of the virtuous, pious Dutch. The artists paid careful attention to material and emotional detail, and often dressed the characters in contemporary garb, to reinforce the scene's moral and civic lesson.

The King and Queen with Haman, by Rembrandt, 1666

3) Rembrandt was personally fascinated with the Old Testament and he chose to live in a Jewish area of Amsterdam. He and his students were naturally drawn to Jewish characters, Biblical and contemporary. Both Testaments provided subjects for his artistic output, and counting his paintings etchings and drawings, I would have to admit that New Testament themes predominated. And yet the impression remains that the Old Testament held a greater attraction for him.

In 1634 Rembrandt married the wealthy Saskia van Uylenburgh, niece of a successful art dealer, who also lived in the Jewish quarter: Jodenbreestraat. Her money allowed the young family to live a life of prosperity and joy, and to buy a house in the main Jewish area. The family lived on the lower floors of the house, leaving the first floor for his studio. Rembrandt had at least 50 pupils and followers who worked there.

Although there was probably very little connection between Dutch Jews of the mid 17th century and Biblical Jews in the Middle East, the Jewish environment in which Rembrandt lived helped him get a feel for the Old Testament's world at the source.

Zell (2002) found a positive sympathy in Rembrandt to Judaism and to Christian messianism, via a group of philo-semitic Protestants. Zell saw that Rembrandt became intimately familiar with the deeper meaning of the Old Testament via his close friendships with two of the most important Jewish figures in Holland. They were the scholarly Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel, 1654, owner of Holland's first Hebrew printing press, and the erudite physician and community leader Dr Ephraim Bueno, 1647. They were in and out of each other's houses, studios and publishing houses. Many etchings of these two famous Jews survive, mostly by Rembrandt, Govert Flinck and Jan Lievens.

  

King Ahasuerus condemning Haman 1680

Reverend Mom and Women in the Bible blogs have a wonderful painting called The Banquet of Esther 1645 by the Dutch artist Jan Victors (1616-76), a student of Rembrandt van Rijn. The NGV in Melbourne has a Purim painting by Arent de Gelder, Rembrandt's last pupil. The painting, King Ahasuerus condemning Haman 1680, shows the moment in which Esther unmasks Haman as the true enemy and Ahasuerus dramatic­ally draws his dagger, foreshadowing the later execution of Haman.

Read:
1. Nadler, Steven Rembrandt's Jews, Chicago UP, 2003  (one chapter is on line) and
2. Zell, Michael Reframing Rembrandt: Jews and the Christian Image in C17th Amsterdam, Uni California Press, Berkeley, 2002.

When American money married British aristocracy

Everyone knows that Jennie Jerome (1854-1921) of New York was married in the British Embassy in Paris to Lord Randolph Churchill in 1874. Lord Randolph was the second son of John Winston Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough. In 1895 Consuelo Vanderbilt, the daughter of the American billionaire Willie Vanderbilt, married the 9th Duke of Marlborough in a huge New York wedding.

In fact in 1895 alone, nine American heiresses married members of the English aristocracy.

But the concept of cash-strapped British aristocracy searching for beautiful daughters of very wealthy American families was not invented in late Victorian times. Jehanne Wake has shown that the custom of American money  marrying British aristocracy has been going on much longer. Her book, Sisters of Fortune: The First American Heiresses to Take Europe by Storm 1788-1874, published by Chatto and Windus in 2010, goes back to the earliest part of the 19th century.

Marianne, Louisa, Bess and Emily Caton were the four sisters of fortune who were descended from the first settlers in Maryland. And not just any old family - this family was extra-special. The girls’ grandfather, Charles Carroll (1737–1832), was one of the signers of the USA’s Declaration of Independence in 1776, not a robber baron from the age of oil wells and steel mills. Carroll was one of the wealthiest men in Maryland, owning extensive agricultural estates that made their money from tobacco and slavery. He was the closest America was going to get to aristocracy, although he was Catholic.

I am not sure what would have been a bigger problem in Britain, once the girls sailed to London – that they were foreigners with allegiance to a foreign nation, or that they were Catholic. When Marianne, Bess and Louisa Caton first arrived in London in 1816, only Emily stayed in North America, consolidating the family estates and marrying a Canadian fur-trader.

At the very time that the news of the Battle of Waterloo (1815) was filling the gossip columns, the three charming and beautiful Caton sisters were still unknown in Britain. Yet that situation changed quickly. Sex and money were always the twin forces that drive so much of human endeavour, particularly apparent in the cauldron of the Regency period. The young women had the money and they were willing to negotiate with young men of status. The three of them exploded into the heart of Regency high society and the Prince Regent himself took an interest.

It could not have been easy in class-ridden Britain. That the siblings survived the many assaults on their reputations, and became bastions of a society at first intent on excluding them, is evidence of unusual strength of character. And evidence, I suppose, of beauty. The largest portrait below, of Marianne Caton, was painted by sublime society portraitist Sir Thomas Lawrence.

Portraits of the four women on the cover of  Wake's book: Sisters of Fortune.

As soon as he met Marianne Caton, the Duke of Wellington fell in love with her and this (?one sided) love affair was one of the most important parts of Wake’s story. When she was 37, Marianne married the impoverished 1st Marquis (Richard) Wellesley, Wellington's brother and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. I wonder what they made of Catholic Marianne in the vice-regal court of Protestant Ireland?

In the end Marianne's charm and money must have worked their magic.  She rose to become the first American-born marchioness and lady in waiting to Queen Adelaide. An extraordinary statement of acceptance for the grand-daughter of a slaver.

At the very same age (37), Louisa married Francis Marquis of Carmarthen who succeeded his father as the 7th Duke of Leeds in 1838. Safely ensconced as the Duchess of Leeds, Louisa apparently became a friend of young Queen Victoria.

Bess remained single for a very long time (till 49) and made her rather lucrative career in the international stock market, a very rare occupation or pastime for women. Bess looked after her own finances of course, but she was also well placed to deal with her sisters' investments - and did! Then she too married into the British aristocracy, becoming the wife of the 8th Baron Stafford of Costessey Hall Norfolk in 1836. He was a much older man with a very large family and no great wealth, but at least he was a devout Catholic.

Because the 3 British sisters were not young when they married, Emily was the only one of the four Catons to have children.

Wake showed how the three British Caton sisters managed investment portfolios, and were active and informed players in the national and international markets. She showed how they used their social connections to win political or diplomatic appointments for their husbands, and to gain information on investments. But there is one thing I don't understand. The Married Women's Property Act, British legislation that significantly altered English law regarding the property rights granted to married women, allowing them to own and control their own property, didn't come into law until 1882. Even financially savvy women could not have ignored the most powerful parliament in the world.

Duchess of Marlborough and her son

by Giovanni Boldini, 1906

Metropolitan Museum of Art NY

Clearly it was a story of money and status, of the choices it gave these sisters and of the way it shaped social life in the decades following 1816. So how much real power did it give to these women, particularly over the men in their lives? Pretty women with good figures and tons of family money were always "seen" to wheedle what they wanted out of their helpless husbands. Not, I think, the Caton sisters. They were active organisers of their own destinies.

I will be interested to read a biography of Lily Hamersley, who in 1888 became the first American after Louisa Caton to become an English duchess. Lily, a very wealthy widow, married the 8th Duke of Marlborough and became chatelaine of Blenheim Palace, seat of the Churchill family. See Lily, Duchess of Marlborough (1854-1909): A Portrait with Husbands, by Sally Svenson.

The blog Edwardian Promenade warmly recommended To Marry an English Lord or, How Anglomania Really Got Started by Carol McD. Wallace and Gail MacColl, Workman Publishing Company, 1989.

An Exuberant Catalogue of Dreams by Clive Aslet (2013) is my favourite. In the difficult decades between the agricultural depression of the 1870s and the aftermath of WW2, Yankee heiresses crossed the Atlantic in droves. But Aslet's book brings something new to the topic - amazing images of the new arrivals and their impact on architecture, landscaping, farming and interior design.

**

There are many stunning portraits of the beautiful and wealthy American women who married into the British aristocracy. Consuelo Vanderbilt (above) married Charles Spencer-Churchill 9th Duke of Marlborough in 1895, and moved into Blenheim Palace. The marriage was loveless but she gave birth to two adored sons, heirs to the dukedom.

Barcelona, Hemingway and absinthe

I am interested in the Bar Marsella for two important reasons. Firstly it is apparently the oldest bar in Barcelona, opening for business in 1820. Secondly it is apparently where Ernest Hemingway could be found, drinking his absinthe, any night of the week during his period in Barcelona. I know that Hemingway was in Spain for considerable periods during the 1920s and at least twice during the late 1930s, so the connections are possible. And there are definitely references to absinthe in  For Whom the Bell Tolls,  Death in the Afternoon and other of his stories.

And not just Hemingway. I would love to know if Oscar Wilde, Vincent Van Gogh and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec socialised in Bar Marsella, as suggested. Toulouse-Lautrec certainly loved the green drink and created cocktails based on absinthe, but I can't find any specific references to him being in Barcelona.

Bar Marsella

Original Victorian chandeliers, hanging from the shiny ceiling, spread an eerie glow onto the faded bar mirrors, the woodwork and the customers. Lisa Abend noted that there is another glow; the infamous absinthe spirit casts its greenish glow from tables everywhere, including those being used by groups of rowdy students on their Gap Year abroad. I assume their parents don’t realise what their sons and daughters are up to.

Absinthe is unpalatable by itself, so a ritual is required. Each glass of absinthe comes with a lump of sugar, a fork and some water. The drinker holds the sugar on the fork, over the glass, and drips the water onto the sugar until it dissolves into the absinthe, which then changes colour. The warm glow that results is the famous absinthe Green Fairy that writers wrote about and the artists painted. Since Bar Marsella had always and still has a faded bohemian atmosphere, we can assume people visit now for the decadent history of decades past.

Matt Skinner was particularly fascinated with the eating and drinking habits of Barcelona. Noone eats dinner before 9 PM and so the later one gets to Bar Marsella, the better. 11 PM seems perfect. As I am definitely a night person and resent bitterly having to start my day before noon, this is the city for me. However I know why France, Netherlands, Switzerland and other countries permanently banned absinthe between 1910-1914 and I am far too alarmed about potential brain damage to try the drink myself.

Degas, The Absinthe Drinkers, 1876, Musée d'Orsay Paris

Picasso, The Absinth Drinker, 1901, Melville Hall Collection, New York

Both Degas' and Picasso's drinkers may have been creative, bohemian people, socialising in creative, bohemian Paris, but they looked bleary eyed and very sad. Toulouse Lautrec's drinker, on the other hand, was well dressed and looked in control of his environment.

Toulouse Lautrec, Monsieur Boileau at the Cafe, 1893, Cleveland Museum of Art

Thank you to the readers who discussed the paintings and decorative arts associated with absinthe drinking in restaurants and bars. The ritual certainly created a demand for specialist art objects that can be examined in their own right - spoons, glasses, carafes etc. Furthermore there were beautifully designed posters and other commercial ephemera that survived since the Belle Epoque. One wonderful site is Absinthe Originals.

Onlinecollege org published an annotated list of their "15 Most Famous Cafes in the Literary World". As you would expect, La Rotonde and Le Dome Cafe in Montparnasse won first and second place respectively but La Coupole only came 12th and Bar Marsella failed to win a guernsey at all.

From "Anna Maria Grosholtz" to the mighty "Madame Tussaud"

Joe and I had been to Madame Tussaud’s wax museum in London with our sons (before they were too independent and stroppy to travel with us). But at that stage I had no idea if Madame Tussaud was a real person or not.

Anna Maria Grosholtz (1761–1850) was born in France, but as her father died when she was still a neonate, her mother had to take work wherever it was offered - Switzerland. Mrs Grosholtz worked for one Dr Philippe Curtius, a physician who used wax modelling to illustrate anatomy lessons for young students.

Dr Curtius moved to Paris in 1765, starting work by setting up a wax exhibition. In that year he made a waxwork of Louis XV's last mistress, Madame du Barry, a cast of which is the oldest work currently on display. In 1767 Mrs Grosholtz took her daughter and joined Dr Curtius in Paris. The first exhibition of Curtius' waxworks was shown in 1770 and seemed to be very popular. In 1776, the exhibition moved to the Palais Royal.

Wax model of a young Maria making a wax model, in the Berlin museum 

Dr Curtius taught young Maria Grosholtz the art of wax modelling and found that she was a very interested pupil. In 1778, she created her first wax figures, mostly famous people like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire. Apparently she lived at Versailles from 1780 to the Revolution a decade later, which might explain how she knew royals so well.

But knowing the royals was not a good thing, once The Revolution started. It could have been a very dangerous time for Maria, but fortunately she was called back to Paris and met many of the people who played a significant role in French life then, including Napoleon Bonaparte.

Maria Grosholtz was arrested during the Reign of Terror (1793-4) and was at great risk of execution by guillotine. But due to the intervention of a member of the Committee of Public Safety, Maria, Dr Curtius and his family were saved  and released. When the mob stormed the Bastille, Maria had to make wax death masks of the victims of the guillotine, particularly King Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette, Marat and Robespierre. These death masks were hugely popular and guaranteed her a steady career.

On his deathbed in 1794, Dr Curtius left his collection of waxworks to his protégé. In 1795, she married François Tussaud, an engineer from Mâcon, and became Madame Tussaud.

Chamber of Horrors, in the London Museum

Life improved in the new century (1802) when Madame Tussaud and the children travelled to London, but I have no idea what happened to the husband. Due to the ongoing Napoleonic Wars, she was unable to return to France, so she exhibited her collection across the major cities of Great Britain and Ireland for 33 years. 

I wonder if Madame Tussaud herself was aware of the newsworthiness of her travelling exhibitions. At a time when news was communicated largely by word of mouth, Madame Tussauds’ exhibition was a kind of travelling news service, providing insight into global events and bringing the ordinary public face-to-face with the movers and shakers of the era.

Thus it took decades before she could open her first permanent exhibition in Baker St in London, a salon richly decorated with mirrors in the old French taste. However as anyone who has visited will know, the main attraction of her museum was rather macabre: the Chamber of Horrors. This part of the exhibition included victims of the French Revolution that she made with her own hands, plus more recently created figures of murderers and other low lifes.

After living through the most hideous and dangerous era in French history, Madame Tussaud would have initially considered herself lucky to survive to 35 years of age! She must have truly been blessed, since she actually died in comfortable old age, at 88. Long after her death, the museum moved from the Baker St Bazaar to its present site in Marylebone Road (in 1884).

Pera Palace Istanbul and the Orient Express

I had stayed in Istanbul in the past, but had not heard of Pera Palace Hotel back then.  So for this post, I've had to depend on the history that came from the hotel itself.

"The sun that suddenly rises behind the hills of Pera, over the minarets of the city and the Golden Horn, fills your heart with a crimson joy.” Thus Knut Hamsun, Norwegian Nobel laureate in literature who visited Istanbul late in the C19th, described his mornings. Like other western intellectuals - from Alphonse de Lamartine to Gérard de Nerval, from Pierre Loti to Theophile Gaultier, Hamsun delighted in visits to this imperial city, a city which changed the course of history forever.

Pera Palace Hotel opened, 1895

As Istanbul became more accessible via C19th developments in transportation, the capital to three ancient empires began to reveal itself to the modern European world. At first, only humble board and lodgings opened up for visitors coming to Istanbul, whether they were coming to see the stunning Bosphorus, the works of world famous Ottoman architect Sinan or the narrow, stone paved, multi-lingual streets.

But when the worldwide famous Orient Express train chose Istanbul as its last stop in the East in 1883, Istanbul began to attract a new crowd: the ennobled and the monied classes of Europe. Unfortunately there were no hotels in the city that could meet the high standards of these Orient Express passengers.

terminus of the Orient Express train in Istanbul

So Compagnie Internationale de Wagon Lits, owners of the Orient Express Train, bought Pera Palace Hotel. The Compagnie picked guests up from the train terminus in Istanbul, then used the hotel to accommodate guests during their stay in the city.  The company welcomed guests with the one symbol – on the train and on the hotel.

Soon the Pera Palace Hotel in Tepebasi, which was founded in 1892 and celebrated with its grand opening ball in 1895, emerged. Designed by local architect Alexander Vallaury, the hotel had neo-classical, art nouveau and oriental tastes. Apart from the royal palaces, Pera Palace Hotel was the first building to have electricity, including an electric elevator made of cast iron and wood. Bathrooms, that provided the only running hot water in the city, were a privilege that was exclusive to the hotel’s guests. Tall spacious rooms lit by magnificent chandeliers witnessed unforgettable tea and dance parties.

This was a tumultuous time for Istanbul – consider WWI, the Occupation of Istanbul, the Turkish War of Independence and the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923. Leader and founder of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, stayed at the Pera Palace Hotel for the first time during WW1, then many times after that. Room 101, where he stayed each time, is now kept as a museum; the original furniture and memorabilia are carefully maintained.

Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express", apparently inspired by the author's stays at the Pera Palace Hotel, was published in 1934. Room 411, where she stayed and wrote, is now preserved in her honour.

Pera Palace's main hall, after the renovations

A major restoration project was started in 2008, and the hotel reopened to its guests two years later.

World Tourist Attraction blog described the renovated version of the hotel: white marble steps from the foyer lead to the Kubbeli Saloon, a soaring room at the heart of the hotel, with parquet floor, banded columns of Carrara marble and six domes pierced with discs of turquoise glass. This is the setting for the English tea ritual, a traditional speciality that is accompanied by music on the Schiedmayer grand piano. The Orient Bar and enchanting dining rooms are described as some of the most atmospheric in Turkey, redolent of turn-of-the-century taste.

Room 411. Agatha Christie's portrait, desk and papers are still in place

To see how beautiful the Orient Express train still looks today, visit Objects Not Paintings blog. Christie’s Paris held a large sale of Orient-Express items in Sep 2011, including a collection of architectural fittings from the train such as the original Morison African mahogany marquetry panels. Alas, as Bella has shown, the train only goes on the Paris-Istanbul route once a year.

William Charles Wentworth: an early Australian nationalist

William Charles Wentworth (1790–1872) was born at sea. They were en route to a penal settlement at Norfolk Island, where his parents surgeon D'Arcy Wentworth and convict Catherine Crowley were being transported. D'Arcy Wentworth had been accused of highway robbery, so he accepted transportation instead of something worse.

In 1796, 6-year old William Wentworth arrived with his parents in Sydney, then a primitive settlement for convicts and soldiers. The family lived at Parramatta, where his father became a prosperous landowner, Principal Surgeon, Superintendent of Police and Treasurer of the Police Fund.

In 1803 the lad was packed off to Britain, where he was educated at a school in London. He returned to Sydney in 1810, where he was appointed acting Provost-Marshall by Governor Lachlan Macquarie, and given a land grant of 1,750 acres on the Nepean River.

The names William Wentworth, Gregory Blaxland and William Lawson are known by every Australian school child. In 1813, they searched for a route across the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, specifically to open up the grazing lands of inland New South Wales. As a reward each of the explorers was granted 1,000 acres of land, enabling Wentworth to become a gentleman pastoralist and South Pacific trader. Wentworth was now doing rather nicely, for a 20-something of rather ordinary parentage.

William Charles Wentworth

In 1819 Wentworth published the first book written by an Australian in which he advocated an elected assembly for New South Wales, trial by jury and settlement of Australia by free emigrants rather than convicts. This was quite radical stuff.

Back in Britain, Wentworth successfully completed his legal studies by 1822 and was admitted to the bar. Wentworth returned to Sydney in 1824 as a young barrister and was admitted to practice in the New South Wales Supreme Court; he took professional rooms in Macquarie Place.

This was in perfect time to inherit the vast property of his recently departed father. Suddenly one of the wealthiest men in the colony, William Wentworth bought land in one of Sydney’s eastern suburbs and rebuilt Vaucluse House. It had started life as a small cottage in 1803 but became quite a mansion under Wentworth’s watchful eye. The neo-gothic style can be seen in the crenellated parapets and turrets. The roofs were made from slate and galvanised iron, and the veranda posts were made of iron. Later additions included a bay windowed front with French windows and louvered shutters, fine Georgian cedar joinery, marble chimney pieces and Pompeii tiles to the hall floor.

Vaucluse House

Vaucluse House still has a large collection of surviving original documents relating to the house, its contents and occupants. Visitors will see a number of extant buildings and gardens, and the house retains much of the original form, interior space and detailing. Where renovations were required, the new decorations were based on mid century inventories and illustrations. As you can see, the drawing room was essentially the feminine domain, excellent for afternoon teas and pre-dinner drinks. The dining room was a heavier room, filled with oak timbers, darkish marble for the chimney piece, formal portraits and dark wall paper.

Wentworth went on to become the colony's leading political figure of the 1820s and 30s, pursuing his causes vigorously: representative government, the abolition of transportation, freedom of the press and trial by jury. These beliefs did NOT always win him friends amongst the powerful elite that ran Sydney society - neither did the fact that his mother was a convict. Perhaps as a result of this social snobbishness, Wentworth joined the Australian Patriotic Association and founded a newspaper, The Australian, to pursue his causes further.

By 1840, transportation to New South Wales ended. With the establishment of an elected Legislative Council, the dominant issue in Sydney Town became the campaign to break the grip of the wealthy landowners over the colony's lands. Yet on this issue, Wentworth sided with his fellow landowners against the democratic party, who wanted to break up the squatters' runs for small farmers! He was elected to the Council in 1843 and became the leader of the conservative party! Why did he change his political views so radically?

In 1853 Wentworth chaired the committee to draft a new constitution for New South Wales, which was to receive full responsible self-government from Britain. His draft provided for a powerful, unelected Legislative Council and an elected Legislative Assembly with high property qualifications for voting and membership. Most of the writing was done in the study of Vaucluse House.

What a tragedy – his progressive nationalism began to disappear. Wentworth suggested the establishment of a colonial peerage drawn from the landowning class! Of course his draft constitution aroused the bitter opposition of the democrats and radicals. In the event, Wentworth’s version was substantially changed to make it more democratic, although the Legislative Council remained unelected. Once the Select Committee that drafted the constitutional document in Sydney had finished its deliberations, Wentworth accompanied the document to England with other Australian selected representatives. Their goal was to facilitate its passage through the British Parliament.

With the establishment of responsible government in 1856, Wentworth retired from the Council.

Dining room (above) and drawing room (below) in Vaucluse House

William Wentworth settled in England and was a member of the Conservative Party in the 1860s. He died in England, but at his request, his body was returned to Sydney for burial. The public funeral of William Charles Wentworth was held in 1873 and the initial service was held at St Andrew's Cathedral Sydney. A lengthy procession followed the hearse to Vaucluse. Amongst the companies of mounted police, guilds, societies and members of government, a contingent of 300-400 Australian-born citizens and a small group of Australian Aborigines marched.

William Wentworth may have gone from progressive explorer, journalist and politician when he was young to… a defender of landed interests when he had substantial money himself. But he WAS one of the leading figures of early colonial New South Wales and his Vaucluse home remains one of the few colonial estates in Sydney to retain much of its architecture and grounds.

I recommend the Vaucluse House guidebook.

Berlin Philharmonic and the Third Reich

The Berlin Philharmonic, founded in 1882, established its reputation when guest conductors like Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler and Edvard Grieg were invited to Berlin. For this post, I am particularly interested in its history as the so-called orchestral wing of Goebbels’ propaganda machine, from 1933 until the end of World War Two.

Misha Aster’s book, The Reich's Orchestra: The Berlin Philharmonic 1933-1945

Nothing was accidental in cultural decision-making. The National Socialists regarded art, and especially music, as an expression of Germany's long and glorious culture, capable of fostering great national pride and a powerful sense of national unity. Because they regarded themselves as guardians of their nation's cultural heritage, the Nazis opposed socialist and modernist trends in all the arts and viewed the culture of the Weimar period with reactionary disgust. Their response stemmed partly from conservative aesthetic taste and partly from their determination to use culture as a prop­a­ganda tool.

The Orel Foundation put it succinctly. Germany's leaders planned to mould their fellow citizens along approved cultural lines. Clearly they regarded the Berlin Philharmonic and its conductor as an essential component in promoting a positive image of German culture. Hermann Goering controlled the Prussian state theatres, including the Staatsoper. Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, administered the Berlin Philharmonic almost by decree. Both ensembles depended on government funding, but loss of financing was not the worst punishment available for not toeing the party line!

The relationship between music-loving members of the Nazi party and the Berlin Philharmonic was secured. The orchestra served as formal representatives of the Nazi regime, providing the musical programme for the Nazis’ party congresses in Nuremberg and the Olympic Games, and giving regular concerts for other Nazi organisations. The musicians were the only able-bodied men in Germany to be fully exempt from military service - a huge privilege! But the cost was their loss artistic independence and their involvement in propping up an obscene regime.

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, 10% of the orchestra were Jews or were Christian men married to Jewish wives. Those who were themselves Jewish were expelled from the orchestra and made their way, as quickly as possible, to Britain and France. Some of them later travelled on to the New World.

But musicians were not the only people affected. The great compositions of Salomon Sulzer, Jaques Offenbach, Erich Korngold, Gustav Mahler, Arnold Schönberg and Felix Mendelssohn were banned throughout Germany and eventually Austria, even though some of these composers had only the remotest connection to Judaism.

The Jewish conductor Bruno Walter (1876–1962) left the Berlin orchestra for Austria in 1933. At the time of the 1938 Anschluss, Walter happened to be recording music in Paris and fortunately was offered French citizenship.

Furtwängler bows to a delighted Hitler and Goering, 1940

Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886–1954) was the German conductor and composer who was given the responsibility of leading the orchestra in 1922. People far more musically educated than myself totally supported his reputation as one of the leading conductors in Europe. The question remains, however, why did he remain in Nazi Germany, even though he was not a member of the Nazi party? And how did he react to the many Jewish members of his orchestra, from 1933 on?

There were plenty of stories that told of his distaste for the Third Reich. According to Fans in a Flashbulb, his championing of composers labelled by the Nazis as degenerate, like Schoenberg, and his protection of Jewish musicians were risky and impressive stances. The six Christian musicians who had Jewish wives managed to stay in the orchestra, largely due to Furtwangler’s refusal to obey Goebbels’ orders. Furtwangler even insisted that Jewish wives be allowed in the concerts to hear their husbands perform. Yet the fact that he stayed in Germany until 1944, conducting benefit concerts for the Nazis and receiving their protection and praise in return, led to the severe diminishing of his international reputation. At his denazification trial, Furtwängler made an impassioned but rather pathetic defence of his actions during the war.

Herbert von Karajan (1908–89) was in a different situation. Firstly in 1935, von Karajn actively applied for membership in the Nazi Party (something Furtwängler never did) and expected that his career would be given a significant boost. Secondly Karajan was 22 years younger than Furtwangler and didn’t make his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Berlin State Opera until 1938. Das Wunder Karajan had fewer moral choices to make since he established his career under Nazi patronage and didn’t become the Principal Conductor in Berlin until well after the war (1954–89).

Read Misha Aster’s book, The Reich's Orchestra: The Berlin Philharmonic 1933-1945, published by Souvenir Press in 2010. And read Entartete Musik blog.