Description: First published in French as La collection disparue, copyright à âEditions Stock, 2020.
Brief description: Pauline Baer de Perignon has co-authored film scripts and directed writing workshops in Paris where she lives. The Vanished Collection is her first book.
Review Quotes:
"Pauline Baer de Perignon is a natural storyteller-refreshingly honest, curious and open. Like the best memoirists, she manages to tell multiple stories simultaneously, to delicately layer meanings and narratives. Here is not only a riveting art world mystery, but an utterly personal, heartfelt, and extremely intelligent story of a woman doing everything she can to uncover the truths of her family."
--Menachem Kaiser, author of Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure
"A heartwarming and fascinating story by a superlatively gifted writer and first-rate reporter. ... The Vanished Collection is a remarkable book."
--Air Mail
"Riveting ... This page-turner will delight art history and mystery fans alike."
--Publishers Weekly
"Engrossing ... The book reads like a detective story. ... [Its] ultimate theme is about restoring memory--that most significant feature that makes humans human."
--The Washington Post
"Undeniably intriguing ... memorable and often moving. A fascinating journey to uncover lost family secrets--and treasure."
--Kirkus Reviews
"A charmingly told account of a woman's quest to reconstruct her great-grandfather's art collection that leads her not only to the restitution of looted works, but also to a profound and touching recognition of her family's wartime odyssey and her own place in their myriad generations."
--Lynn H. Nicholas, author of The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War
"Beautifully evokes a vanished world that once stood at the crossroads between the heights of civilization and the depths of barbarism before being overwhelmed by the latter. The restitution to Pauline Baer de Perignon's family of one of France's finest 18th-century masterpieces, through a harrowing process dramatically recounted in this book, goes some way to redeem the cause of civilization."
--James Gardner, author of The Louvre: The Many Lives of the World's Most Famous Museum
"This book--aside from its flowing style, compelling storyline and intriguing twists and turns--adds such an important chapter to the Holocaust narrative and its culture-centered subset."
--The Holocaust Art Restitution Project
"Fascinating--a true treasure hunt through history ... Make[s] for riveting reading. As it sifts through 'a jumble of beautiful things, of gilt and dust, ' The Vanished Collection arrives at a sense of delayed justice--but also at invaluable family reconnections."
--Foreword Reviews
"A page-turning book that is part detective story, part personal journey ... De Perignon manages to successfully penetrate the often-opaque world of art restitution through pluck and perseverance, while uncovering an unspoken part of her family history."
--The Forward
"This detective story, this memoir, is one for our time. ... There are lots of funny passages. ... Should you read this book? Absolutely."
--Muséeacute;e Musings
"Demonstrates how difficult it continues to be to right the wrongs inflicted on Jewish families in World War II, and how the silence of a generation helps to perpetuate those wrongs ... Fascinating ... Compelling, leading to a satisfying, if bittersweet, conclusion."
--Historical Novels Review
"For decades the lost Jules Strauss collection lay shrouded in mystery.