Antiques dealer who bought West African mask for £130 then sold it for £3.6million WINS legal battle with previous owners after judge rules the elderly French couple failed to appreciate its true worth

Elderly couple accused dealer of misleading them about the artefacts true value

An antiques dealer who bought an African mask for £130 and then sold it for £3.6million has won a legal battle with its previous owners - after a judge ruled the elderly French couple failed to appreciate its true worth.

The couple, in their eighties, sold the wooden mask in September 2021 as part of a number of antiquities including African artifacts they had kept in their secondary home in southern France and wanted to be rid of.

The objects had belonged to an ancestor who was a governor in West Africa, and were believed to be of little value.

Apart from the mask, they also included lances, a circumcision knife, a bellows and musical instruments.

They let the mask go for 150 euros (£130), but in March 2022 it was sold to an unidentified buyer at an auction in the southern city of Montpellier, fetching 4.2 million euros (£3.6million).

Fang masks, highly stylised and carved from wood, are made by the Fang people who occupy regions in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon

The couple, aged 81 and 88, from Nimes in France, were clearing out their home in 2021 and decided to sell the 'Ngil' mask

The auctioneers described it as 'an extremely rare 19th-century mask, property of a secret society of the Fang people in Gabon', an ethnic Bantu group, with only around 10 such objects still in existence.

The couple promptly filed for an injunction to cancel the original sale, arguing there had been an 'authentication error'. They also said the mask's buyer 'was aware of the mask's real value' at the time of the purchase.

But the court rejected the request, saying the couple had failed to make any attempt to get the mask valued before selling.

Their claim was characterised by 'inexcusable negligence and frivolity', the court said, ruling that they were not owed any money.

It also ruled that the antiquities dealer, who himself was no expert on African art, did not cheat them.

The dealer actually offered to pay them 300,000 euros (around $330,000), the auction starting price, but the couple's children refused, preferring to take the matter to court.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12881613/Antiques-dealer-bought-African-mask-130-sold-3-6million-WINS-legal-battle-previous-owners-judge-rules-elderly-French-couple-failed-appreciate-true-worth.html