A French elderly couple on Tuesday saw its request to cancel the 4.2-million-eurosale of a rare African mask that they sold for £150 thrown out, with the court calling their claim frivolous. The court also threw out a separate motion by the government of Gabon to have the sale cancelled and the mask returned.
The couple, in their eighties, sold the wooden mask in September 2021 as part of a number of antiquities including African artifacts they had kept in their secondary home in Southern France and wanted to be rid of.
