The genial smiling face of Stefan Landau will be sorely missed by the netsuke world. He was a regular attendee at netsuke conventions, making his way methodically around the dealers room and engaging in conversations about the netsuke on display.
Stefan’s father had the foresight to move his family to the safety of Switzerland in response to the growing Nazi threat and they were safely settled there before the outbreak of the war in Europe. Stefan always had a fascination for art and antiques, but trained and worked as an engineer. His daughter Annette recalls that her school was next to an auction house and that her father would sometimes arrive to collect her early in order to go to a sale, where she would bid on his behalf.