The Gabon government has filed a lawsuit seeking the restitution of a rare 19th-century wooden mask that was auctioned in France in March for 5.25 million euros. The mask is said to have been stolen around 1917 by Victor Fournier, a colonial governor who took it to France at the time.
It is an unexpected turn in a legal battle that is attracting a lot of attention in France. An elderly French couple found an African mask while clearing out their holiday home. They sold it to a local antique dealer in September last year for 150 euros.
The trader kept quiet that it was something special. Through dendrological research he determined that the cheese wood used dated from the nineteenth century. And at his request, the gardener of the elderly couple, in exchange for a share of the proceeds, surreptitiously discovered the provenance history of the mask, which is so important to collectors.
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The elderly man’s grandfather brought the mask from Gabon in 1917. It is one of approximately twelve surviving masks of the Ngil Society. These are of great importance in terms of art history, also because artists such as Picasso and Modigliani derived inspiration from these masks.
The couple filed a lawsuit after reading about the millions in proceeds in the newspaper. They accused the antique dealer of error. On appeal, their complaint was declared “founded in principle”. The net auction proceeds of 3.1 million euros have been frozen, and the substantive hearing of the dispute will follow in December.
The authorities in Gabon were alerted to the mask by the action group Collectif Gabon Occitanie. At the auction in March, the action group loudly announced that the mask had been stolen from their ancestors. “Gabon is waking up,” Olivia Betoe posted at the end of October in a message on X . She is one of two lawyers that Gabon hired to claim the mask. On Facebook Mbone Nze Gondjout, one of the members of the Collectif Gabon Occitanie, reported enthusiastically about the legal claim: “When I think that this all started with a small protest from my association, and now the whole world is talking about it. We’re bringing our mask home!”
France colonized Gabon between 1885 and 1960. During that period, armed forces stole many resources and cultural properties from the country. An unknown number of the missing artifacts are in public and private collections worldwide.
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