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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Staff and agencies

French couple lose court case over rare African mask worth millions

Africa Gabon
Members of the Gabon community said the mask should never have been put up for sale and must be returned to the central African country.
Members of the Gabon community said the mask should never have been put up for sale and must be returned to the central African country. Photograph: Pascal Guyot/AFP/Getty Images

A French couple who sold an “extremely rare” African mask for €150 only to discover it was worth millions have had a request to cancel the artefact’s sale thrown out in court.

The couple, in their 80s, sold the wooden mask in September 2021 to a secondhand goods dealer as part of the sale of a number of antiquities including African artefacts that they had kept in their secondary home in southern France.

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