"The Ephrussi were . . . the Kinds of Grain. They were Jews with their own coat of arms: an ear of corn and a heraldic boat with three masts and full sails. . .their motto: We are above reproach. You can trust us" (Chapter 1, pg. 24.)

"What was it like to have something so alien in your hands for the first time, to pick up a box or a cup - or a netsuke - in a material that you had never encountered before and shit it around, finding its weight and balance, running a fingertip along the raised decoration?" (Chapter 4, pg. 46.)

"Charles knows that it is intimacy that matters. Picking up a drawing enables us to 'catch the thought of the artist in all its freshness, at the very moment of manifestation, with perhaps even more truth and sincerity than in the works that require arduous hours of labor, with the...