The 88-year-old and his 81-year-old wife, identified by their initials in court documents but confirmed to CNN as Mr. and Mrs. Fournier by their lawyer, listed for sale an ancient African mask, which had been inherited from Mr. Fournier\u2019s grandfather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The grandfather, Ren\u00e9-Victor Edward Maurice Fournier, had served as a colonial governor in Central Africa during the early 20th century, when significant parts of the continent were under French colonial rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Fourniers sold their mask in September of 2021 to a second-hand dealer for 150 euros,court documents<\/strong><\/a>show. According to their lawyer, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Mansat Jaffr\u00e9, the two were unaware of the mask\u2019s market value and believed the dealer was offering a fair price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few months later, their lawyer said they learned through a newspaper article that their old mask was being auctioned off, and that it was worth substantially more than what the dealer paid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two days later, it sold for 4.2 million euros, a sale receipt shared with CNN showed, equivalent to more than $4.5 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Fourniers launched a civil case against the dealer which they lost in the fall of 2022 and were ordered to pay court costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now they are appealing the earlier court decision, claiming the dealer failed \u201cin his obligation to provide pre-contractual information\u201d and committed \u201ca breach of consent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The couple seeks to annul the sale of the mask and want the auction\u2019s proceeds to be given to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n CNN has contacted the dealer\u2019s lawyer for further comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the appeal commenced at the Al\u00e8s Tribunal in southern France on Tuesday, the Gabonese government waded in and formally requested a suspension of the proceedings..<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dealer\u2019s defense, according to court documents, maintains that he was unaware of the value of the mask when he purchased it from the couple and only discovered it once he went to the auction house to have it appraised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Court documents show that his lawyers argued that \u201cthe sellers have no grounds for claiming error. They themselves offered the item for sale at 150 euros. They made an inaccurate economic assessment of the value presented by the mask.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gabon has filed a separate court case for the handling of stolen goods, accusing Mr Fournier\u2019s ancestor of having stolen the Ngil mask and therefore never being its rightful owner, Olivia Betoe Bi Evie, one of the lawyers representing Gabon, told CNN<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the court accepts its petition to suspend the current legal proceedings on the sale of the Ngil mask, the country will be able to pursue their separate case for the handling of stolen goods and fight for the mask to be returned to its country of origin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The court is expected to make its decision known on December 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The mask is an extremely rare artifact of great spiritual value to the Gabonese people, Betoe Bi Evie told CNN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dating from the 19th century, it belonged to the powerful Ngil society, a secret group tasked with administering justice within the Fang communities of Gabon, according to Betoe Bi Evie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor Westerners, the mask is an art object,\u201d Betoe Bi Evie said, \u201cbut for Africans, for the Gabonese\u2026 it\u2019s a ritual object used to ensure peace in society. It\u2019s very important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to a Sotheby\u2019s listing<\/a> for a similar Ngil mask, these artifacts \u201care among the rarest and most highly celebrated of all African artworks,\u201d making them \u201ckeenly sought after as indispensable keystones of the best collections of African art.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The auction catalog for the mask said it had been \u201ccollected around 1917, under unknown circumstances, by the French colonial governor Ren\u00e9-Victor Edward Maurice Fournier (1873-1931), probably during a tour of Gabon,\u201d according to CNN affiliate BFMTV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The couple\u2019s lawyer argued in court that the dealer deliberately withheld information about the origins of the mask from them and planned to split the money with their gardener, who had provided him with information about the Fourniers\u2019 ties to the former colonial governor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was through this information that the dealer was able to deduce the origins of the mask, Mansat Jaffr\u00e9, the lawyer, told CNN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dealer and the gardener allegedly visited the auction house together, presenting themselves as co-owners of the mask, the sellers assert in court documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The couple say the dealer did not inform them of his relationship with their gardener, nor that he had any intention of auctioning off their mask, according to their lawyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe think he (the dealer) already had an idea at the back of his head, and that he knew the mask was rare,\u201d Mansat Jaffr\u00e9 told CNN. \u201cMy clients\u2026 are not art collectors, they\u2019re amateurs\u2026 they didn\u2019t know better,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the Fourniers discovered the mask was being auctioned off, they contacted the dealer, who offered 300,000 euros in compensation, equivalent to the auction house\u2019s estimate of the mask\u2019s worth, Mansat Jaffr\u00e9 said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The couple\u2019s children advised their parents to refuse the sum and file a lawsuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the moment, 3.2 million euros, the amount the dealer earned from the sale of the mask after tax deductions and commission fees, have been frozen in his bank account by the courts, Mansat Jaffr\u00e9 said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The trial has attracted attention among France\u2019s large African diaspora and among those at the court were several Gabonese protesters demanding that the mask be returned to their country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some were also present at the auction house when the mask was sold, back in March 2022, according to Solange Bizeau, president of the Collectif Gabon Occitanie, the organization behind the protests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She told CNN that she was \u201cshocked\u201d to see how little respect for her culture was displayed in the courthouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe two lawyers told the court that we, the Gabonese people and the Gabonese State, have no legitimate claim to (the mask),\u201d said Bizou. \u201cI was shocked to see that they (those participating in the trial) weren\u2019t interested in the mask, they didn\u2019t care what it meant for us, all they wanted was money.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, only a dozen Ngil masks remain in the world, according to court documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many, according to Betoe Bi Evie, are in the hands of private collectors. So far, the identity of the mask\u2019s buyer remains unknown to everyone except the dealer and the auction house, neither of whom has disclosed it, Mansat Jaffr\u00e9 told CNN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n French President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly called for the restitution of colonial artifacts from French collections to their original owners. After his election in 2017, he expressed his desire for \u201cthe conditions to be in place within five years for temporary or permanent restitutions of African heritage to Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to a report<\/a> submitted to Macron in 2018, there are at least 80,000 objects from Sub-Saharan Africa held in French public collections. Until now, only a handful have been returned to their countries of origin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some artifacts have been returned indefinitely<\/a>, like the 26 looted royal objects that comprise the Treasure of Behanzin, restituted to Benin in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n