January 2009 - Do You Know...

The collection of impressionist works of art formed by well-known French art dealer and collector Ambroise Vollard was seized by the Germans after the occupation of Paris in 1940. Although they were not interested in modern art, German authorities recognized the commercial value of what they described as ‘commercial art’ and consigned the collection to Martin Fabiani, a Paris art dealer and protégé of Ambroise Vollard who had died in July 1939. The object was to raise much-needed dollar currency by selling the paintings in New York.

British Intelligence was tipped off about this scheme and suspected that Fabiani was acting as a German agent. When the collection was shipped from Lisbon to New York aboard the American Export Line’s Excalibur, a British warship stationed in Bermuda was instructed by the Admiralty to intercept the Excalibur and to bring her into the Great Sound.

Much to the annoyance of the captain of the Excalibur, his ship was seized and anchored in the Great Sound on October 3rd, 1940. The well-known author, H. Montgomery Hyde, then Security Officer with Contraband Control and British Censorship in Bermuda, received instructions from London to remove the Excalibur’s cargo as contraband.

When boarding the Excalibur together with Bermuda’s Chief Customs Officer Rowe Spurling and his assistant Ralph Gauntlett, Mr. Hyde was confronted by a very uncooperative captain who announced that the ship’s strong-room had been locked and welded shut with strips of steel. This did not discourage Mr. Hyde, however, as he immediately sent a signal to Dockyard, requesting a shipwright-welder be dispatched to the Excalibur as quickly as possible.

Fifteen minutes later Edward Pearce appeared with his oxy-acetylene gear and electric welding equipment and burned off the steel strips. With the strong-room finally open, the wooden crates containing the paintings were lowered over the side onto the Customs boat and taken to Hamilton for safe storage.

After consultation with the Attorney-General, Trounsell Gilbert, it was determined that the staggering number of pictures – including 429 paintings and drawings by Renoir, 68 paintings by Cezanne, 57 by Rouault, 13 by Gaugin, 7 by Degas and many more by Manet, Monet and Picasso – would be subject to Prize Court proceedings. Because of Bermuda’s humid climate, it was considered unwise to keep the paintings on the island and they were sent to Ottawa’s Canadian National Gallery for the duration of the war. On May 4th, 1949, they were released to the original consignee, Martin Fabiani, the suspected German agent.