The couple sold a rare African mask for 150 euros and could have become millionaires

In France, a husband and wife sold an African mask to an antiques dealer for 150 euros. Having learned that it was subsequently sold for more than four million, the shocked spouses went to court, but…

he rejected the spouses’ claim to annul the sale of a rare mask for next to nothing. How tells The Guardian, the deal between the merchant and an elderly French couple from the Eure-et-Loire department took place in September 2021. They inherited a valuable artifact; their ancestor was a colonial-era governor in Africa.

They had no idea that the mask could be valuable, so they sold it to an antiquities dealer. But just six months later, in March 2022, this African mask was sold to an unidentified buyer at an auction in Montpellier for 4.2 million euros. The auctioneers described it as an “extremely rare 19th century mask”, “the property of a secret society of the Fang people in Gabon.” There are no more than ten such artifacts in the world. A representative from the auction house said:

“This type of mask is even rarer than paintings by Leonardo da Vinci.”

When the details of the deal became known, the dealer offered to pay the couple 300,000 euros, the starting price of the auction, but the couple’s children refused, preferring to go to court. They filed to cancel the original deal, claiming there was an “authentication error.” The statement also indicated that the buyer of the mask allegedly knew its real cost.

But… the court rejected the claim, saying that the couple did not even try to evaluate the mask before selling it, and called it “negligence and frivolity.” He also determined that the antiquities dealer, who was not himself an expert on African art, did not deceive them by not knowing the true value of the artifact. The couple’s lawyer said his clients were “stunned” by the decision and wanted to appeal.

The court also rejected the Gabonese government’s request to cancel the sale and return the mask. Members of the Gabonese community attended the auction, where they protested the sale and demanded that the artifact be returned to the Central African country. Solange Bizot from Collectif Gabon Occitanie, who protested the auction along with other members of the Gabonese community, told the Guardian:

“Today this court case involves the grandchildren of the governor against a second-hand goods dealer. But none of them are the legal owner of this mask. What we want is the return of the mask to Gabon. This mask has a soul, it was used to establish justice in our villages. The trial was about morality, but what about the morality of art theft and our dignity? Where is the moral in this?

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