The Sassoons

Abstract

"The Sassoons were prosperous as bankers and treasurers to the Ottoman sultans in nineteenth-century Bagdad, until they were driven out by religious persecution. Assuming the precarious status of stateless Jews, the family dispersed, establishing businesses in Mumbai, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and London. This volume tells the sweeping global and intergenerational story of the Sassoon family through the works of art they collected. Lavishly illustrated with paintings, porcelain, manuscripts, Judaica, and architecture, it highlights family members, including numerous accomplished women, who were patrons of art and sponsors of remarkable buildings in their rarefied, upper-class worlds."-- Back cover

Contents

The Sassoons : an abridged family tree -- Foreword / Claudia Gould -- Introduction / Esther da Costa Meyer and Claudia J. Nahson -- From commissioners to collectors / Claudia J. Nahson -- Art / Esther da Costa Meyer, with contributions by Claudia J. Nahson -- Architecture : a scattered legacy / Esther da Costa Meyer -- Epilogue / Esther da Costa Meyer and Claudia J. Nahson.