THE ROTHSCHILD ALEFBEYS

Twenty-two sketches ideated by Bruno Loeb, this unusual collection of small
paintings was created for an unknown play written by Ansky (Shlomo Zainvil
Rapaport, the author of the Dybbuk), about the paradoxical vicissitudes in
post-october revolution Moscow, of an antique book dealer, a dreamer who
regards himself as the living reincarnation of the famous Spanish kabbalist
Abraham Abulafia.
The Alefbeys sketches collection, brought to France by a mysterious woman,
Nathalie Kovner, was
put to good use by the now "Madame Nathalie", fortune teller to the Paris
rich and famous, hence the designation of THE ROTHSCHILD ALEFBEYS, seemingly
from the name of one of her more affluent clients, Baron Edmond de Rothschild.
In the early forties, Madame Nathalie was deported to Treblinka death camp,
when she met the lager commander, SS general Odilo Globocnik, and became one
of his mistresses.
We don't know what happened of Nathalie, but, for sure, the collection
became the property of Globocnik, who, after the war's end, escaped and,
under a false name, came to Santa Monica, California, where he lived a
comfortable life.

(continues ...)