Elderly French couple sue art dealer who bought African face mask from them for £129 and sold it for £3.6m

An elderly couple are suing an art dealer who bought an African face mask from them for £129 and sold it for £3.6m.

The anonymous couple, aged 81 and 88, from Nîmes, France, were cleaning their house in 2021 and decided to sell the Ngil mask.

In September of that year, they flogged it to a dealer known as Mr. Z.

After paying just a pittance for it, he sold it a few months later at auction in Montpellier for an impressive £3.6 million.

The artwork is a traditional Tooth Mask from Gabon used in rituals such as weddings and funerals.

The mask is a rare sight outside of the central African country, where fewer than a dozen are in museums around the world.

The mask was brought to France by her husband’s grandfather, who was a colonial governor in Africa, reports ARTnews.

After buying it from an elderly couple for a small price, Mr. Z sold it at an auction in Montpellier for millions of dollars.

Tusk masks, highly stylized and carved from wood, are made by the Tusks who occupy the regions of Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

The French couple didn’t know about the product’s huge value until they read about the sale in the newspaper.

They are now suing Mr. Z because they believe he defrauded them.

The lawsuit is ongoing, but as of June 28, the Nimes Court of Appeals has decided that the couple’s case “seems fundamentally sound.”

It ordered to freeze the proceeds from the sale until the end of the case, reports ARTnews.

The couple filed a case that the dealer concealed his doubts about the value of the artifact.

Instead of displaying the mask in his shop, he contacted three auction houses in France to appraise its value.

The last of these was an African artefact specialist who expertly analyzed the mask.

Auctioneer Jean-Christophe Giuseppe poses next to an “Ngil” mask of the Zanik people of Gabon

The mask was put up for sale by the auctioneer with an estimate of £259,416 and £345,888, but was sold for a significantly higher price in March last year.

The dealer initially offered the couple £259,416 when they faced legal action, but the offer was rejected because their children objected, according to court documents reviewed by Artnet News.

Fang masks are highly stylized and carved from wood. They are made by the Tusk people who occupy the regions of Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

The one sold in the auction has decorative elements on the lower half that resemble a long beard.

Tests dated the mask to the 19th century, and an ethnologist said it was used by the Ngil, a secret male society that formed part of the Fangner people and controlled court affairs.

Court documents seen by Artnet News state: “This piece of kaolin-encrusted cheesewood is therefore exceptional in its rarity, with only a dozen other examples known to exist worldwide in Western museums and collections.”