FEATURED JOBS
Comments (0)The premise of Sara Houghteling’s debut novel is intriguing. Set in Paris in the 1930s and 1940s, it delves into the life of a pre-eminent Jewish art-dealing family before World War II, then follows the son when he returns to the liberated city in 1944 and attempts to recover the family’s looted masterpieces.
The Berenzons begin to amass their impressive art collection in the late 1800s. Abraham Berenzon owned an artists’ supply store and received paintings as payment for supplies. Daniel Berenzon inherits his father’s art gallery and masterfully builds up the collection, developing relationships with many of the premier artists of the day, including Matisse and Picasso.
Max, his son, is the novel’s narrator, who navigates through corrupt art dealers, collaborators and black marketeers in his post-war search for his family’s paintings.
The novel works when it focuses on the story of the Parisian art world before and after the Nazi occupation. The intricate look into the workings of the gallery owners and the auction houses is fascinating. The history of how the French saved their artwork from the Nazis, and the duplicity of both art dealers and Parisians who looted from the Jews, is an important piece of history.
Unfortunately, the novel fails to reach its potential because the characters remain distant and unengaging. Despite the importance of the subject matter, this reviewer didn’t care what happened to Max and to the family’s paintings.
At the same time, my favorite part of the book was the author’s note at the end. She provides detailed historical information about the French art world. Particularly intriguing is the fact that many of the paintings found in national French museums are inventoried in “recovery collections” under the code of MNR. Today, if you visit a French museum and see a placard with the letters MNR [Musees Nationaux Recuperations] you have a good idea where the artwork came from.