Calouste Gulbenkian

Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian was an Armenian businessman and financier who played an important role in the development of the international oil industry. Known for negotiating minority interests in major petroleum ventures, he accumulated a substantial fortune and assembled an important collection of European, Middle Eastern and Asian art. He spent much of his later life in Britain and Portugal.

In Mark Ellis’s Dead in the Water, Gulbenkian appears under his own historical identity within a plot involving valuable artworks, espionage and property stolen during the Nazi occupation of Europe. His career as a financier and collector is historical, while the novel’s specific art transaction, crimes and encounters with fictional characters are imaginative reconstruction.