Ephrussi family

The Ephrussi family (French pronunciation: [ɛfʁysi]) were a Ukrainian Jewish banking and oil dynasty. The family were elevated to the nobility by the Habsburg emperor. The family controlled large-scale oil resources across the Crimea and the Caucasus. They had made their fortune controlling grain distribution in the Ukraine. From 1856, members of the family established banking houses in Vienna, Paris, and Athens. During the 19th century, the family possessed vast wealth, owning many castles, palaces, and estates in Europe. The family were known for their connoisseurship, intellectual interests, and their huge collections of art.^[1]

The family's bank and properties were seized by the Nazis after the March 1938 German annexation of Austria.

Notable members of the Ephrussi include:

• Béatrice de Rothschild-Ephrussi (1864-1934) - part of the Rothschild family
• Boris Ephrussi (1901-1979), influential French geneticist (his wife, Harriet Ephrussi-Taylor, 1918-1968, was also a geneticist and crystallographer)
• Charles Ephrussi (1849-1905), art historian, proprietor of the "Gazette des Beaux-Arts", an inspiration for Charles Swann in Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu
• Ignaz von Ephrussi (1829-1899), Austrian banker
• Jules Ephrussi (1846-1915), French banker
• Marie Juliette Ephrussi, Princesse de Faucigny-Lucinge, (born 1880) - Princess de Faucigny-Lucinge
• Maurice Ephrussi (1849-1916), French banker
• Michel Ephrussi (1845-1914), French banker
• Viktor von Ephrussi (1860-1945), Austrian banker
• Fanny Reinach

Properties included:

• Palais Ephrussi is a Ringstraßenpalais - Vienna.
• Villa Ephrussi - Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat on the Côte d'Azur^[2]
• Hôtel de Breteuil, 12 Avenue Foch, Paris
• Hôtel Ephrussi, Rue de Monceau, Paris
• Hôtel 11, Avenue d'Iéna, Paris
• Villa Kerylos on the Côte d'Azur

Other Ephrussi

• Boris Ephrusi (1865, Kishinev - 1897, San Remo) — Russian economist and journalist, member of the Russkoye Bogatstvo monthly magazine, brother of Perla Ephrussi and Zinaida Michnik (Ephrussi).
• Perla Ephrussi (also Paula and Polina Ephrussi, 1876, Kishinev - 1942, Pyatigorsk) — Russian educational psychologist.
• Zinaida Michnik (Ephrussi) (1878, Kishinev - 1942, Pyatigorsk) — Soviet pediatric researcher.
• Yakov Ephrussi (Russian: Яков Исаакович Эфрусси, 1900, Odessa - 1996, St. Petersburg) — Soviet engineer, innovator in the field of television technology, nephew of Zinaida Ephrussi and Perla Ephrussi.

The Hare with Amber Eyes

The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010) is a family memoir of the Ephrussi family by British ceramicist Edmund de Waal, whose grandmother was of that family.

References