A Sneak Peek Inside a Legacy of World-Class Collecting
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In recent months the saga of the Sassoon family has been a hot topic. It was chronicled onscreen in Benediction, a biopic directed by Terence Davies that focuses on the tormented, glamorous life of First World War–era poet Siegfried Sassoon, and in print in The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire, by historian (and descendant) Joseph Sassoon, which charts the rise and fall of the family’s empire, across three continents and two centuries.
Now a major museum exhibition, “The Sassoons,” is opening March 3 at the Jewish Museum in New York. It presents perhaps the most vivid picture yet of the family, through more than 120 superlative works of art they commissioned or collected.
The story begins in the 1830s, when patriarch David Sassoon, son of the chief treasurer to the pashas of Baghdad, was forced to flee due to the persecution of the city’s Jewish population. A father of 14, he established himself in India, where he entered the cotton trade. Eventually members of the clan migrated to China and then to England, and as they built what was arguably the first truly global business—trading in opium and other commodities—their vast wealth grew and they ascended to the top rungs of society.
Discerning collectors and connoisseurs, the Sassoons acquired beautiful things every step of the way, beginning with lavishly illustrated ancient Hebrew manuscripts and other
Judaica. Rare works of Chinese art subsequently came into their hands, followed by Western masterpieces by artists such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, John Singer Sargent (who painted family members including Philip and Aline Sassoon), John Constable, and Thomas Gainsborough. The Sassoon fortune waxed and waned along with the British Empire; the family’s downward trajectory was hastened too by a decline in entrepreneurial spirit among members of the younger generations, who were more interested in spending money than making it. With the collapse of the dynasty, many of its treasures were sold off, though plenty of good stuff stayed in the family.
Eight years ago Claudia Nahson, senior curator at the Jewish Museum, and Esther da Costa Meyer, professor emerita at Princeton, began contemplating an exhibition. The two women traced hundreds of works that had become scattered in private and public collections worldwide. The British Museum, the National Gallery in London, and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston are among the institutions that agreed to lend items for “The Sassoons.” Family members also lent important pieces: the 7th marquess of Cholmondeley, for example, provided a series of magnificent portraits by Sargent from the collection at his home, Houghton Hall, in Norfolk, England. “This is the first time these works have been brought together,” Nahson says.
“Both Esther and I have been fascinated with the Sassoons,” she adds. “It’s a family filled with captivating people and incredible art. It’s a sweeping saga of a journey from East to West, and through the art you go on their journey.”
This story appears in the March 2023 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW
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