He is the author and artist who explored his Jewish family history in the celebrated memoir The Hare With Amber Eyes.

Now Edmund de Waal is addressing his heritage in porcelain works going on show at the Buckinghamshire estate of Lord Rothschild, Waddesdon Manor.

Two of the delicate, elegant pieces will eventually be taking up a permanent home in Israel at the National Library, with the support of the Rothschild philanthropic foundation, Yad Hanadiv.

Mr de Waal grew up the son of a prominent Anglican minister, but has been haunted by the fate of generations of Jews forced to flee into exile since discovering his family’s history. He will return to Jerusalem this autumn to view the permanent home for an exhibit that started life in Venice’s ancient Jewish ghetto, and will then oversee its installation in Israel’s new National Library next spring.

He told the JC: “I was in Israel for the first time in 2014 to 2015 after writing about what happened to my own family and could not be anything but overwhelmed.”

One of the pieces at Waddesdon is Sukkah, first shown in the Canton Scuola synagogue in the ghetto. Mr de Waal calls it a “celebratory” piece: “It’s full of fragile structures which look very temporary, but also bits of gold which reflect the light, and I have managed to bring it up to the very highest place in Waddesdon, within one of the turrets.”

Earlier, Sukkah had been exhibited at Canterbury Cathedral, where his father was Dean, in the crypt, “the very lowest place” as he puts it, “and next it will go into the synagogue which will be part of the new National Library in Israel”.

The other exhibit at Waddesdon bound for Jerusalem is Psalm IV, one of four vitrines made for the Library of Exile installation in Venice.

It contains porcelain vessels arranged among marble pieces in an echo of the composition of the first pages of the 16th-century edition of the Talmud published in Venice by pioneering printer Daniel Bomberg. De Waal says: “It was my way of connecting with my own mixed-up Jewish heritage; psalms were always part of my life growing up in the church.”

He says as a child he had “taken for granted” his grandmother’s life as a member of the Ephrussi family, a Ukrainian-Jewish dynasty who once equalled the Rothschilds in wealth and influence.

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De Waal's book The Hare with Amber Eyes

But inheriting 264 tiny wood and ivory figures — including a hare — known as netsuke prompted him to explore his family history through the Holocaust in his memoir. He said this week while installing his work at Waddesdon: “So much of what I make and write centres on belonging, loss and exile, the stories of how families have to move and what they bring with them.”

As for his choice of porcelain as a medium, he explained: “It’s such a fragile material, like people, especially those weakened by persecution, and the vitrines I make to protect my pieces are places of safety.”

Also on show at Waddesdon is de Waal’s “Library of Exile”, a version in oak of a porcelain-clad structure which housed books now in Mosul, Iraq, to where they were donated to replace a library that was destroyed by Islamist terror group Isis. The original structure housing the 2,000 books by writers in exile will eventually be housed in London at the Warburg Library.

“I love that it is going to be reassembled in two years’ time at a great library of exiled Jewish literature while the books are already in Mosul and soon Psalm will be on its way to Jerusalem,” says de Waal, who is also showing newer work in the exhibition opening next week. De Waal’s first show at Waddesdon was in 2012, with more than 1,000 pots on display.

Lord Rothschild said: “It is an enormous pleasure to be working again with Edmund de Waal, 10 years on from his original collaboration with us.

“These powerfully thoughtful installations explore the interconnected relationships between faith, history, displacement, learning and archives which seem more deeply relevant than ever at this moment, and are woven into Waddesdon’s own fabric and existence.”

“Edmund de Waal: we live here, forever taking leave”, is at Waddesdon Manor, from 15 June to 30 October