Monday, February 13, 2012

Good Living Street : Portrait Of A Patron Family, Vienna 1900
by Tim Bonyhady

Hermine and Moriz Gallia were a prominent Viennese family and great patrons of the arts during the early part of the twentieth-century. They amassed a huge collection of paintings, furniture, silver, glass, etc. In order to avoid anti-Semitism, they all converted to Catholicism. When Kristallnacht reared its ugly head, they were able to pack up all of the contents of their apartment and flee to Australia. It was probably the best private collection that was able to be saved: a Steinway piano, diaries, chandeliers, furs, books, you name it.
Amazingly, I read this entire book thinking that it would be placed on the book-a-holics blog. By the time I finished the damn thing, I knew that wasn't going to happen. The author is the great-grandson of Hermine and Moriz Gallia. On the back flap of the book, it says that he is an award-winning art historian, curator, and environmental lawyer. Believe it or not, he has written five other books each of which must be as equally boring as this one is. Between the listings of every painting, types of furniture, names galore, every incessant detail of anything and the plodding, dull, deadening prose, why would anyone want to read this awful mess?
Not recommended.

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