As with any dynasty, the history of the Sassoon family is filled with adversity, courage, intellect, and a name that binds them together. What separates the Sassoons from other wealthy families is their remarkable and vast tale of trade, travel, art collecting, architectural patronage, and civic engagement, which took them from Iraq to India, China, and England. The Sassoons at The Jewish Museum covers both the family and the objects they collected, but falls short of addressing the underbelly of the Sassoons’ greed and jealousy. And despite the initial wall text promising to “cast light on the important role of the Sassoon women,” the show does not delve far enough into the trailblazing paths that the many Sassoon women forged.
The exhibition features 120 examples of artworks, manuscripts, and Judaica from around the world that the family members amassed. In the first of the five galleries, we are greeted by a portrait of David Sassoon (1792–1864), the family patriarch and the start of the story. David wears a flowing robe and intricate headdress; accented by his long silver beard, he is the picture of an Iraqi Jew with means. He fled persecution in Baghdad, soon establishing himself in Mumbai (then Bombay). There, he was involved in the cotton trade, later expanding to trade Indian opium with China.
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An intricate ornamental ivory casket gives form to the family’s opium-fueled wealth and sets the stage for a later room dedicated to objects from the Qing and Ming dynasties. The small Qing object, owned by Victor Sassoon, offers a painted view of the Bocca Tigris, which played an important role in the First Opium War. In an effort to dominate the opium trade, David sent his son, Elias David Sassoon, to scout out new customers. Opium became enormously lucrative for the Sassoons; their entire fortune was built on the highly addictive (though legal) drug.
One must be careful when judging the family’s participation in the opium trade, especially through a contemporary moral lens. But at the time, the drug was already known to be addictive and dangerous. In fact, the family quietly dismissed some of their Chinese employees because of their addiction to opium.
The first room is also filled with such items as silver Torah cases, marriage certificates, and portraits of the family. Though these might have been paid for by opium, only the ivory casket points to the business, and the family’s involvement with the drug is merely a footnote in the audio guide.
The adjoining galleries follow the Sassoons’ transition from Far East trading to assimilation into British society. In a small alcove, Rachel Sassoon Beer (1858–1927) takes the stage, the first of many strong Sassoon women. An ethereal 1887 portrait of her by Henry Jones Thaddeus hangs at the center. Rachel was an avid art collector and socialite, as well as an accomplished journalist and the first female head of two major news publications: The Sunday Times and The Observer in London. The wall text in the room mentions Rachel’s unprecedented female leadership, but the romanticized portrait, and a subsequent room that holds her collection of works by Rubens, Courbet, Corot, and Constable, depict her as a wife and collector first and as a revolutionary feminist icon second. Despite her major role in journalism, no copies of any newspapers or articles on which she worked are in the show. If this exhibition seeks to pay special attention to the women of the family, why not include copies of her legendary reporting on the Dreyfus Affair?
Silver Torah finials, scrolls, and pointers fill the fourth gallery, alongside a vast collection of manuscripts of ancient Jewish texts, from kabbalistic treatises to the Hebrew Bible, liturgical fragments, and the family Haggadah. This impressive collection of Judaic art and literature is juxtaposed with the Sassoons’ art and architectural patronage. Here, Sybil Sassoon (1894–1989) and her connoisseur’s eye dominate. With a Sassoon father and a Rothschild mother, Sybil and her brother, Phillip, grew up in the company of prominent artists, as well as prominent social and political figures. Among the many works on view are a quaint sketch by William Orphen, paintings by their close friend Winston Churchill, and portraits of the family by John Singer Sargent, displayed together on a long wall.
It was strange to see so many portraits of Aline de Rothschild, Sybil, and Phillip, but none of Flora (Farha) Sassoon (1856–1936). Flora was David Sassoon & Co.’s first female partner, and in 1894 one of the first female presidents of a global company. Flora was pushed out of the company after seven years due to her brothers’ inability to accept her success.
The exhibition’s last section focuses on the family’s role in World War I, in which Sir Victor Sassoon, Philip, and Siegfried served. Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967), a poet, became the voice of a generation with his defiant letter of protest against the war. “A Soldier’s Declaration” was published in The Times of London and read aloud in Parliament. There was no copy of the newspaper to share in detail his revolutionary ideas, but tucked away in a small display case you will find a notebook with the draft of the statement written, crossed out, and edited.
The Sassoon dynasty is filled with merchants, poets, soldiers, socialites, rivalries, art, and drugs, and all the family members have stories to tell. But the Jewish Museum missed an opportunity to look more critically at the Sassoons’ dependency on selling opioids to fund their lavish lifestyle, and to delve into the lives and careers of the women — who made strides toward gender equality that are only acknowledged in passing. Perhaps by casting a fresh light on such a legendary family with this exhibition, we can look forward to new scholarship that fills in these gaps.
The Sassoons continues at the Jewish Museum (1109 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan) through August 13. The exhibition was curated by Claudia Nahson, Morris and Eva Feld Senior Curator at the Jewish Museum, and Esther da Costa Meyer, Professor Emerita at Princeton University.
Source: Hyperallergic.com