“Ferdinand Springer did not want to go into exile in the United States where he could have been successful early on. Returning to Le Havre in the company of Gala and Salvador Dali, he was able to abandon Paris on the strength of his sales in New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia. The house he built outside Grasse became his principal home-base for the duration of his life. His first works, close to classicism or romanticism, were tinged with an element of fantasy which reminds us of Arnold Böcklin or Giorgio De Chirico. Ferdinand Springer’s works which form part of this first period of creation are quite rare. A few are in museums and private collections in the United States, others disappeared with the seizure of the collection of Wilhelm Uhde by the Gestapo." According to Alain Paire.