A major Canadian art gallery is currently searching for the owner of a priceless Cezanne water colour seized in Bermuda during the Second World War.The 1890 Cezanne work, Group of Trees, was one of hundreds of master art pieces discovered by British Censorship officials on the ship Excalibur, as it passed by the Island in October 1940.Ottawa’s National Gallery of Canada has been the custodians of the work ever since.“The museum has been trying for some time to establish the legal owners of the water colour,” said Anabelle Kienle Ponka, an associate curator with the gallery.The artworks were hidden behind a sealed iron door and were opened with a blowtorch, against the Excalibur captain’s violent protests. The shipper was Martin Fabiani, a Paris art dealer who was sending them to a New York gallery. They were seized because it was thought that profits from the sale would benefit the Nazis. At the time the Nazis were looting art galleries across Europe and using intermediaries to sell off the works to pay for the war. The British were covertly monitoring Mr Fabiani because he had ties to Hitler. They knew of the shipment in advance. After the war he went to prison in France for consorting with the Nazis and fined $1 million.The paintings were most likely from the collection of the famous art dealer Ambroise Vollard — who was not a Nazi. Mr Vollard discovered and mentored many artists who are now household names, such as Cezanne. He died suddenly in a car accident in 1939. His drug-addicted brother sold a lot of the work to Mr Fabiani, Mr Vollard’s chauffeur. Mr Fabiani was able to buy the likes of Gauguin, Renoir and Cezanne for next to nothing. A consummate opportunist, he took the paintings and set himself up in the gallery of a Jewish art dealer who had fled Paris. His customers included one of Hitler’s longtime lovers.The paintings seized by the British were kept in Bermuda for a period of time and then shipped to the National Gallery of Canada because it was felt the humidity here would destroy them. They remained there for the rest of the war. Mr Fabiani waged a lengthy battle against Mr Vollard’s heirs for ownership of the paintings still stored in Canada.A French court ruled he would get three-quarters of the works and Mr Vollard’s sisters the rest.Mr Fabiani traveled to Canada to collect his share. The Cezanne water colour was accidentally left behind when the division between the Vollard heirs, represented by their lawyer Edourd Jonas, and Martin Fabiani took place at the National Gallery of Canada after the war. Gallery staff found the water colour among scraps of paper but both parties had already left Canada.“We have been approached by a legal council representing Vollard's heirs and we are looking into establishing Mr Fabiani's heirs through genealogical research.”She added: “Although the Nazi-era background of Mr Fabiani is well known it is only circumstantial with regard to the history of this water colour. It is a work that has been left behind and that has to be returned to its rightful owners.”Although she did not put a dollar value on it, she said: “It is a work by Cezanne and would be worth quite a lot of money today.”