Description

63 rue de Monceau, Paris
Dear friend,
As you may have guessed by now, I am not in your house by accident. I know your street rather well.

Count Moise de Camondo lived a few doors away from Edmund de Waal's forbears, the Ephrussi, first encountered in his bestselling memoir The Hare with Amber Eyes . Like the Ephrussi, the Camondos were part of Belle Epoque high society. They were also targets of ugly anti-semitism.

Camondo created a spectacular house and filled it with the greatest private collection of French eighteenth-century art for his son to inherit. But when Nissim was killed in the First World War, it became a memorial and, on the Count's death, was bequeathed to France.

The Musee Nissim de Camondo has remained unchanged since 1936. Edmund de Waal has explored this beautiful palace; the lavish rooms, exquisite objects and detailed archives. In a haunting series of letters, he writes to the Count, and gets to know the boy who journeyed from Constantinople and became a model French citizen, before all that was gained was torn away.