- In 2021, an elderly couple was clearing out their second home when they came across an African mask.
- They agreed to sell it to a local antique dealer for $158, according to court records.
- Now, the couple is accusing the dealer of cheating them after he sold the mask for millions.
A couple is suing a local antique dealer after they learned that an African mask they parted with for $158 was later sold at auction for about $4.4 million.
The couple — an unnamed 81-year-old woman and her 88-year-old husband — was cleaning out their second home sometime around 2021 when they came across the mask.
According to court records reviewed by Insider, the couple went to a local antique dealer to sell the piece.
Both parties agreed on a price: €150, or about $158.
The couple's lawyer said his clients erroneously believed the mask was "worthless," according to Le Monde, a French news outlet that first reported on the lawsuit.
But the mask turned out to be a rare piece of African art — a 19th-century Ngil mask used in rituals by the Fang people in Gabon, with only a handful of such pieces in existence.
Only about a "dozen or so other specimens are known to exist worldwide, in Western museums and collections," court records stated.
After the antique dealer sought a few appraisals and radiocarbon dating, the mask was put up for auction for about $315,000 to $420,000.
In March 2022, it was sold for €4.2 million, or about $4.4 million, court records show.
Now the couple is suing the dealer for roughly $5.55 million, for allegedly cheating them by withholding the knowledge that the piece was valuable.
According to court records, the dealer didn't display the item in his shop but instead reached out to Drouot Estimation and Fauve Paris, two French auction houses. They both estimated its worth to be under €600.
It wasn't until after the dealer sought out a third opinion and radiocarbon dating that the mask was put up for auction for considerably more.
"Only a person with a perfect knowledge of the art market is capable of mounting a sale through an auction house, after having requested a carbon-14 expertise and enlisted the help of an expert in African masks," the lawsuit said.
The couple alleged that the dealer also approached their gardener to get more information about their family and their ancestry to deduce the authenticity of the piece before consulting the auction houses, court records said.
According to the lawsuit, the dealer split the money from the sale with the gardener.
The antique dealer attempted to settle the case by paying the couple about $315,000, but according to the lawsuit their children opposed the settlement.
A lower court initially sided with the dealer, ordering the couple to pay about $3,200 in damages and fees. But the couple appealed the outcome and the case remains open.
In the meantime, an appeals court has seized the money from the sale, about $3.3 million after sales and capital gains tax, court records show.