Description
Art. Biography & Autobiography. History. Nonfiction. HTML: "Engrossing ... The book reads like a detective story."�??The Washington Post It all started with a list of paintings. There, scribbled by a cousin she hadn't seen for years, were the names of the masters whose works once belonged to her great-grandfather, Jules Strauss: Renoir, Monet, Degas, Tiepolo and more. Pauline Baer de Perignon knew little to nothing about Strauss, or about his vanished, precious art collection. But the list drove her on a frenzied trail of research in the archives of the Louvre and the Dresden museums, through Gestapo records, and to consult with Nobel laureate Patrick Modiano. What happened in 1942? And what became of the collection after Nazis seized her great-grandparents' elegant Parisian apartment? The quest takes Pauline Baer de Perignon from the Occupation of France to the present day as she breaks the silence around the wrenching experiences her family never fully transmitted, and asks what art itself is capable of conveying over time.… (more)
Publication
New Vessel Press (2022), 256 pages
User reviews
LibraryThing member BLBera
This is the story of Pauline Baer de Perignon's efforts to find out about her great-grandfather's art collection. Her great-grandfather, Jules Strauss, was a noted collector, who survived WWII in Paris. Baer de Perignon describes her journey from the moment a cousin first mentions that there was
If you're looking for a story of looted art, this is not that story. This is a very personal story, told in a rather scattered way, jumping from one topic and time to another with no transitions. This is Baer de Perignon's first book, and it shows. The writing is not great; how much of this is due to the translation, I'm not sure.
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something shady about the sale of a number of Strauss' paintings. As she begins her research, she realizes that the family never talks about the war experience of Strauss and his wife and she finds that they didn't survive as unscathed as the family stories indicate.If you're looking for a story of looted art, this is not that story. This is a very personal story, told in a rather scattered way, jumping from one topic and time to another with no transitions. This is Baer de Perignon's first book, and it shows. The writing is not great; how much of this is due to the translation, I'm not sure.
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LibraryThing member seeword
Pauline Bear de Perignon is given a list of ten art works that belonged to her great-grandfather that are suspected of haven been looted by the Nazis. This is supposedly the tale of her search for the paintings and evidence that they really were stolen. As such it is a sort of detective story
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complicated by family relationships, dubious records, etc. She does recover a painting but, if I'm not mistaken, it wasn't one of the ten on the list. It's confusing. I had to keep flipping back and forth in case I missed a clue. Not perfect, but an interesting read. Show Less
LibraryThing member clue
The author is the great-grandaughter of Jules Strauss (1861-1943) one of the most highly respected art collectors of his time. The list of his acquisitions reads like the syllabus of an art history course.
As the author grew older she became increasingly curious about the fate of the Strauss
The experience is interesting, and certainly should be, but it's rough reading. The information is disorganized and there were times I was looking backward to reread more than I was reading forward. I admire the author for her tenacity and determination to get to the real story but I wish the book was more pleasurable to read.
As the author grew older she became increasingly curious about the fate of the Strauss
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collection. Her great-grandfather was German, Jewish, and an emigre to France where his apartment was seized during the Occupation. The story told in her family was that the collection had been sold off by Jules. Because she was curious and had a niggling doubt, the author began what became an extensive research project based on the fate of the collection and this book is the result.The experience is interesting, and certainly should be, but it's rough reading. The information is disorganized and there were times I was looking backward to reread more than I was reading forward. I admire the author for her tenacity and determination to get to the real story but I wish the book was more pleasurable to read.
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LibraryThing member KarenSiddall
The fascinating story of one woman's search for her great-grandfather's lost art and true-life story.
When a cousin mentioned that the Nazis might have pillaged their great-grandfather's art collection during their occupation of Paris in World War II, author Pauline Baer de Perignon was caught
Intrigued, she began to research her great-grandfather's collection and, in the process, discovered the truth about her great-grandparents' lives during the occupation. She'd always understood they'd come through that dark time in history pretty much unscathed, and that just wasn't the case at all.
The Vanished Collection is a wonderful and exciting tribute to the author's great-grandfather, renowned collector of Impressionist art, Jules Strauss. It is also a tribute to perseverance and dedication to researching the truth.
I found the author's recounting of her experiences easy-to-read and absolutely fascinating. I was so caught up in her story that time flew by. I was immersed in her search.
The difficulties she ran into getting the museums responsible for preserving and reuniting the stolen art with their rightful owners or their heirs was eye-opening. So little concerted effort appears to have been put into the process of returning these sentimental, not to mention priceless, items to where they belong.
Also, the story is a heartbreaking, sobering reminder of the Jews who lost everything: their property, possessions, families, and lives. I hope this book spurs other descendants to question what family treasures may be locked away in some museum, safe yet forgotten. I know that I want to read more about this topic now.
I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy from the publisher and France Booktours.
When a cousin mentioned that the Nazis might have pillaged their great-grandfather's art collection during their occupation of Paris in World War II, author Pauline Baer de Perignon was caught
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entirely off-guard. At no time in her life had she ever heard a whisper of such! Intrigued, she began to research her great-grandfather's collection and, in the process, discovered the truth about her great-grandparents' lives during the occupation. She'd always understood they'd come through that dark time in history pretty much unscathed, and that just wasn't the case at all.
The Vanished Collection is a wonderful and exciting tribute to the author's great-grandfather, renowned collector of Impressionist art, Jules Strauss. It is also a tribute to perseverance and dedication to researching the truth.
I found the author's recounting of her experiences easy-to-read and absolutely fascinating. I was so caught up in her story that time flew by. I was immersed in her search.
The difficulties she ran into getting the museums responsible for preserving and reuniting the stolen art with their rightful owners or their heirs was eye-opening. So little concerted effort appears to have been put into the process of returning these sentimental, not to mention priceless, items to where they belong.
Also, the story is a heartbreaking, sobering reminder of the Jews who lost everything: their property, possessions, families, and lives. I hope this book spurs other descendants to question what family treasures may be locked away in some museum, safe yet forgotten. I know that I want to read more about this topic now.
I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy from the publisher and France Booktours.
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LibraryThing member richardderus
Rating: 4* of five, for the message if not the messenger
The Publisher Says: It all started with a list of paintings. There, scribbled by a cousin she hadn't seen for years, were the names of the masters whose works once belonged to her great-grandfather, Jules Strauss: Renoir, Monet, Degas, Tiepolo
What happened in 1942? And what became of the collection after Nazis seized her great-grandparents’ elegant Parisian apartment? The quest takes Pauline Baer de Perignon from the Occupation of France to the present day as she breaks the silence around the wrenching experiences her family never fully transmitted, and asks what art itself is capable of conveying over time.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
Note that the blogged review has links to citations that I have not transferred here.
My Review: Well, this review went through some changes. A lot like me as I read this book. I think the world needs to attend to the huge, stinking pile of denial in the center of Culture Inc. What happened to the art collected by Jews? It was stolen by the Nazis. Those bad Nazis!
...and then what happened? *blank stare*
In Author Baer de Perignon's tale of family, legacies, and fairness denied, you will learn that the reality is...nothing happened. Museums bear extraordinary responsibility for the nothing that happened. They don't want to give their ill-got gains back to the families whose rightful property it is. The whole raison d'etre of "the Museum" (in its broadest cultural-institution sense) is thus opened to serious question.
This isn't a small issue. The 2003-2011 Iraq war resulted in *appalling* levels of art and antiquities being looted or damaged, often destroyed. There is some tut-tutting over this. Not a lot, given the scale and value of it. Why? Because that leads to lots of awkward questions about how "the Museum" got the stuff in the first place. "Provenance" and "spoliation" in other words. Then that opens lots of graves "the Museum" wants to leave closed.
This isn't the first time that this issue has been raised, or wrestled with. Read a book called [Goldberg's Angel: An Adventure in the Antiquities Trade] (it's excellent, BTW, highly recommend it to you). The topic simmers along, looted antiquities are topics of concern on slow news days around the world. For a minute. They don't rate high on most folks' outrage meters. But the Impressionists and Academicians and Old as well as other Masters aren't talked about in media or entertainment almost at all (pace George Clooney's lukewarm [The Monuments Men], which did poorly at the box office). Because people love them, come to see them in their hallowèd homes, are inclined to buy tat with the (profitably licensed) images on them (from "the Museum"'s store). The fact that many were looted from Jews by the Nazis is bad. But whatcha gonna do.
Nothing, for as long as possible, until the heirs of the murdered millions forget (I was *astonished* at the number of people Author Baer de Perignon met who just knew nothing about what had been looted, spoliated, from their ancestors!) or give up. "The Museum" will still be there, after all, taking in cash from ill-got gains they should've given back most of a century ago.
It is a scandal but no one wants to bring up the solution: restore spoliated property to its proper owners, or otherwise their descendants. As I read this book, I realized the case for this is unassailable. But I realized also why I had such trouble writing this review: I dislike the author.
She's quite sarcastic, very judgemental, has a serious oh-poor-me attitude. She snarks, in the text, about people she fawns over in the Acknowledgments. One assumes she thinks these people won't read the actual book.... Her scattered, disorganized research method draws criticism she fobs off as passing...but I promise you that her "mentors" did the real heavy lifting. I read this between the lines, I recalled many author Acknowledgments from when I was an agent that left out lots of realities not to the Author's Taste. And I realized that I support the message of repatriation, restitution, and acknowledging the harm done to generations of people simply because they were Other...but I dislike this messenger.
It's a shallow, personal response, and it shouldn't prevent anyone from picking up this book for its message of ma'at, fairness, justice, and the value of saying "I'm sorry."
The Publisher Says: It all started with a list of paintings. There, scribbled by a cousin she hadn't seen for years, were the names of the masters whose works once belonged to her great-grandfather, Jules Strauss: Renoir, Monet, Degas, Tiepolo
Show More
and more. Pauline Baer de Perignon knew little to nothing about Strauss, or about his vanished, precious art collection. But the list drove her on a frenzied trail of research in the archives of the Louvre and the Dresden museums, through Gestapo records, and to consult with Nobel laureate Patrick Modiano.What happened in 1942? And what became of the collection after Nazis seized her great-grandparents’ elegant Parisian apartment? The quest takes Pauline Baer de Perignon from the Occupation of France to the present day as she breaks the silence around the wrenching experiences her family never fully transmitted, and asks what art itself is capable of conveying over time.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
Note that the blogged review has links to citations that I have not transferred here.
My Review: Well, this review went through some changes. A lot like me as I read this book. I think the world needs to attend to the huge, stinking pile of denial in the center of Culture Inc. What happened to the art collected by Jews? It was stolen by the Nazis. Those bad Nazis!
...and then what happened? *blank stare*
In Author Baer de Perignon's tale of family, legacies, and fairness denied, you will learn that the reality is...nothing happened. Museums bear extraordinary responsibility for the nothing that happened. They don't want to give their ill-got gains back to the families whose rightful property it is. The whole raison d'etre of "the Museum" (in its broadest cultural-institution sense) is thus opened to serious question.
This isn't a small issue. The 2003-2011 Iraq war resulted in *appalling* levels of art and antiquities being looted or damaged, often destroyed. There is some tut-tutting over this. Not a lot, given the scale and value of it. Why? Because that leads to lots of awkward questions about how "the Museum" got the stuff in the first place. "Provenance" and "spoliation" in other words. Then that opens lots of graves "the Museum" wants to leave closed.
This isn't the first time that this issue has been raised, or wrestled with. Read a book called [Goldberg's Angel: An Adventure in the Antiquities Trade] (it's excellent, BTW, highly recommend it to you). The topic simmers along, looted antiquities are topics of concern on slow news days around the world. For a minute. They don't rate high on most folks' outrage meters. But the Impressionists and Academicians and Old as well as other Masters aren't talked about in media or entertainment almost at all (pace George Clooney's lukewarm [The Monuments Men], which did poorly at the box office). Because people love them, come to see them in their hallowèd homes, are inclined to buy tat with the (profitably licensed) images on them (from "the Museum"'s store). The fact that many were looted from Jews by the Nazis is bad. But whatcha gonna do.
Nothing, for as long as possible, until the heirs of the murdered millions forget (I was *astonished* at the number of people Author Baer de Perignon met who just knew nothing about what had been looted, spoliated, from their ancestors!) or give up. "The Museum" will still be there, after all, taking in cash from ill-got gains they should've given back most of a century ago.
It is a scandal but no one wants to bring up the solution: restore spoliated property to its proper owners, or otherwise their descendants. As I read this book, I realized the case for this is unassailable. But I realized also why I had such trouble writing this review: I dislike the author.
She's quite sarcastic, very judgemental, has a serious oh-poor-me attitude. She snarks, in the text, about people she fawns over in the Acknowledgments. One assumes she thinks these people won't read the actual book.... Her scattered, disorganized research method draws criticism she fobs off as passing...but I promise you that her "mentors" did the real heavy lifting. I read this between the lines, I recalled many author Acknowledgments from when I was an agent that left out lots of realities not to the Author's Taste. And I realized that I support the message of repatriation, restitution, and acknowledging the harm done to generations of people simply because they were Other...but I dislike this messenger.
It's a shallow, personal response, and it shouldn't prevent anyone from picking up this book for its message of ma'at, fairness, justice, and the value of saying "I'm sorry."
Show Less
LibraryThing member varielle
There are so many stories both true and fictional of Art destroyed or stolen by Nazis during WWII that it’s hard to choose which ones to read—I’m thinking of the Woman in Gold and The Hare with Amber Eyes. Many of these stories may never be told but The Vanished Collection is a worthy
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addition. The author is pursuing her great grandfather Strauss’ collection. Heartbreaking and compelling, it’s futile to believe that it all might be found one day but one can hope. Show Less
LibraryThing member Chatterbox
In spite of the fact that the author deals with some fascinating topics -- art theft, ownership questions, questions of provenance for items in museum collections -- from a very personal standpoint, this quasi-memoir reads more like the personal misadventures of an amateur research. That's
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disappointing, because the author doesn't have the knack of making those forays into archives interesting, much less suspenseful or intriguing. I was also left rather incredulous by her apparent lack of knowledge or understanding of some of the issues involved, in light of the attention to the matter in the news. There are fragments of fascinating detail and experience of her own family, but overall, this was disappointing and even confusing. Were some of these items stolen or looted, or were they forced sales, or...? The lack of focus and clarity and structure makes this an underwhelming read. Particularly disappointing as I was hoping for a personal narrative that would dovetail with books like "The Rape of Europa" or writings about the Klimt painting, returned (eventually...) to its heirs, but nope. Show Less
LibraryThing member pomo58
I expected to like this book a lot more than I did. I think my problem had more to do with the fact I didn't care for the authorial voice, since I found the events both intriguing and at times heartbreaking.
The theft, or "appropriation," of artwork and not just the failure to return them but the
While I didn't "enjoy" the book because of the voice, I am glad I read it and learned what I did. I also think my reaction is more personal than an objective reflection of the book, so I have no problem recommending this to readers with an interest in the aftermath of WWII, particularly anything having to do with Nazi atrocities. Those with an interest in art history or those who simply enjoy memoirs that are almost like a mystery will find plenty here to enjoy.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss.
The theft, or "appropriation," of artwork and not just the failure to return them but the
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seeming willingness of many to profit from such crimes because they could shift the responsibility for them onto an evil regime is angering.While I didn't "enjoy" the book because of the voice, I am glad I read it and learned what I did. I also think my reaction is more personal than an objective reflection of the book, so I have no problem recommending this to readers with an interest in the aftermath of WWII, particularly anything having to do with Nazi atrocities. Those with an interest in art history or those who simply enjoy memoirs that are almost like a mystery will find plenty here to enjoy.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss.
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Awards
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
256 p.; 7.9 inches
ISBN
1939931983 / 9781939931986