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Reconstructing a Wartime Journey: The Vollard-Fabiani Collection, 1940–1949

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2015

Nancy Caron Karrels
Nancy Caron Karrels*
Affiliation:
Canadian Holocaust-Era Research Project; Email: [email protected]
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Abstract:

In 1940, the British Admiralty detained a British passenger ship sailing from Lisbon to New York at the port of Hamilton, Bermuda, for a contraband search. Customs authorities seized four crates containing hundreds of artworks by leading European artists. Suspected of being sent to New York for sale by the French art dealer Martin Fabiani for the economic benefit of German-occupied France, the captured collection—originally the property of art dealer Ambroise Vollard—was confiscated as a prize of war and sent to Ottawa, Canada, for wartime safekeeping. The National Gallery of Canada stored the collection from 1940 to 1949, when British courts instructed the collection’s Canadian custodian to release it to its rightful owners, Fabiani and the Vollard heirs. This essay reframes the wartime journey of the Vollard-Fabiani collection and challenges the long-held notion that it belongs to the narrative of Nazi-looted cultural property. This essay also highlights an important role played by the National Gallery of Canada during World War II.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , November 2015 , pp. 505 - 526
Copyright
Copyright © International Cultural Property Society 2015 

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References

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