Jewish Country Houses
From Waddesdon Manor to Fallingwater
Thursday, October 22, 2026
6:00 p.m ET lecture ⋅ 7:15 p.m. ET reception
The Explorers Club
46 E 70th St, New York, NY
Live on YouTube
Please join AFA as we welcome DR. JULIET CAREY, Senior Curator of Historic and Modern Paintings and Drawings at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, as the speaker for our 2026 annual Fall Benefit Lecture. Carey’s lecture will concentrate on a series of case studies as she delves deeply into the history of Jewish country houses in Britain, Europe, and America. These houses reveal a complex story of prejudice and integration, difference and connection. In this lecture, Carey opens our eyes to the worlds of these extraordinary houses, writing them back into history and establishing their importance as sites of identity and memory.
Top: Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, UK. Photo © Waddesdon Manor Image Library, Studio8 Ltd; Left to right: Villa Montesca in Umbria, Italy. Villa Kérylos in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France. Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic. © Hélène Binet.
BECOME A SPONSOR NOW TICKETS ON SALE SOON
In a world where Jews had historically been debarred from landownership and often confined to urban ghettos, such properties had a transgressive quality. They have escaped systematic study until now, but Jewish country houses were ubiquitous across Europe, often clustered within easy reach of capital cities or close to seaside or spa resorts. Many had spectacular art collections and gardens. Some were stages for lavish entertaining, while others inspired the European avant-garde. A few are now museums of international importance, while many more are hidden treasures. All were beloved homes that bear witness to the remarkable achievements of newly emancipated Jews across Europe – and to a dream of belonging that mostly came to a brutal end with the Holocaust.
This this lecture will explore houses, their architecture and collections and the men and women who created, transformed and shaped them, including famous business dynasties, such as the Sassoons and the Rothschilds, politicians, including Benjamin Disraeli and Walther Rathenau, social reformers such as Alice and Leopoldo Franchetti and writers and artists, including Max Liebermann.
Images by the celebrated Swiss architectural photographer Hélène Binet offer thought-provoking alternatives to the familiar conventions of country-house photography. Her work will immerse the audience in a range of houses that have not before been considered together, from the playful historicism of the National Trust’s Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, England, to the Villa Kérylos – an ancient Greek villa reimagined on the French Riviera – to the modernist masterpiece that is the Villa Tugendhat in the Czech city of Brno. Across the Atlantic, in the United States, Americans infused the European country house tradition with their own distinctive concerns and experiences.
About Juliet Carey
Dr. Juliet Carey ’99 is Senior Curator of Historic and Modern Paintings and Drawings at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge. Previously, she was Senior Curator of Paintings, Sculpture and Works on Paper at Waddesdon Manor (National Trust / Rothschild Foundation), and held earlier positions at the Royal Collection, National Museum & Gallery, Cardiff and the National Gallery, London. Juliet has published and curated numerous exhibitions including Guercino, Jean-Siméon Chardin, Thomas Gainsborough, Gustave Moreau and Gwen John, as well as Elizabethan portraits, French and British drawings and the histories of collecting, of taste and of laughter. She has also worked with contemporary artists, including Edmund de Waal, Hélène Binet and Pablo Bronstein. Carey earned her PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art, where her thesis explored Sèvres porcelain and the meanings of vases. She co-edited Jewish Country Houses (2024, Profile Books) with Professor of Modern European History Abigail Green, a project which grew out of a major collaborative research initiative with the University of Oxford and other partners. Juliet completed the Attingham Summer School in 1999.
TICKETS ON SALE IN SEPTEMBER
Virtual Admission | $45
For those not able to join us in New York, but who would like to watch the lecture online via livestream or to have access to the recording, tickets are $45 per person. Virtual Tickets are fully tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
General Admission | $135 or $75
General admission tickets for individuals to the presentation and reception are $125 per person, plus processing fee (total $135). Guests age 35 and under may purchase tickets for $70, plus processing fee (total $75)
We strongly encourage you to purchase tickets online through the button above, before prices increase October 15 to $150.
Sponsorships | $1,500 and above
Donors are essential to the success of AFA’s only annual fundraising event. Proceeds support the AFA’s ongoing operations, particularly our mission to recruit diverse candidates who offer a fresh perspective on the history of British country house collections, architecture, landscape design, and social history.
Our Benefit Patron, Reception Sponsor, as well as individual Gold and Silver donors, are invited to spend additional time with Carey and AFA on a private tour of the exhibition Modernity and Opulence: Women of the Wiener Werkstatte at The Jewish Museum that morning, the evening lecture, followed by a convivial reception and intimate dinner in the Explorers Club’s charming library.
- $6,500 – Benefit Patron signage at check-in, opportunity to share printed materials with guests, pre-lecture tour, lecture, reception, dinner for two
- $5,000 – Reception Sponsor signage at check-in, recognition during opening remarks, pre-lecture tour, lecture, reception, dinner for one
- $2,500 – Gold pre-lecture tour, lecture, reception, dinner for one
- $1,500 – Silver pre-lecture tour, lecture, reception, dinner for one
- $1,000+ – Virtual Donor a virtual seat, 100% tax-deductible
PURCHASE SPONSORSHIPS
With gratitude to all our donors
| Kathleen B. Allaire | Nancy Smith Douglas and Walter Douglas | Pauline C. Metcalf |
| Thomas Appelquist & Charles Newman | Adam Erby | Linda Pasley |
| Marianne and Michael C. Brown | Sheila ffolliott & Shepard Krech III | Marc Porter |
| Susan P. Burke | Barbara File | Susan J. Rawles |
| Edward Lee Cave | Lewis I. Haber & Carmen Dubroc | Stewart G. Rosenblum |
| Amy Coes | Michele Beiny Harkins | Charles C. Savage |
| Sarah D. Coffin | Anne Kenny-Urban | Diana and Sean Toole |
| Robert Collins & E. Clothier Tepper | Jack Kilgore | Jennifer Trotoux |
| Genevieve Cortinovis & Thomas Schmidt | Kristin M. Kligerman | Beth Carver Wees |
| Nancy de Waart | George McNeely | Linda R. Weld |
| List in formation, as of August 12, 2026 |
Images: Portrait of Dr. Juliet Carey ’99. Photo © William Lot. Hughenden Manor in Buckinghamshire, UK. Photo © Hélène Binet for Jewish Country Houses, National Trust Images.