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Mr. François Pinault and those who defended
him just won a decisive battle in the Sesostris III statue
affair after 10 years of legal procedures. In the sales
catalogue, the statue was represented as an effigy of king
Sesostris III. It is, in fact, a statue made of stone, of
medium size, 57cm in height, with the sovereign’s name
engraved on the belt.
This pale copy of the great Egyptian king who
directed Egypt with a hand of bronze – with all due respect
to Mrs. Desroches-Noblecourt, iron was not used in the
Middle empire – at the start of the XIXth century B.C, was
auctioned for about 5 million francs. It was apparently a
very good deal, since according to very specialized sources,
if it had been an original, a royal statue of its kind in
such a perfect state of conservation, it would likely be
sold around 50 million francs; in other words about 10 times
as much. The acquisition was made on November 10, 1998 at
the Drouot auction house in Paris, under the guidance of
Mrs. Elisabeth Delange, curator of the Egyptian department
of the Louvre museum. The sale was undertaken by Mr. Chakib
Slitine, presented on the first page of the catalogue as an
« Expert près la Cour d’Appel de Paris, Assesseur de la
Commission de conciliation et d’expertise douanière ».(expert
at the appeals court, assessor with the conciliation
commission and customs expertise). Nevertheless, on November
3, 1998, even before the sale, Dietrich Wildung, then
curator of the Munich museum, alerted the president of the
official appraisers of Drouot, Mr. Coutau-Bégarie and Mr.
Slitine in writing, as to the non-authenticity of the statue
and its doubtful itinerary (removal of inscriptions in
1982). However, the auction was maintained by these 3
individuals.
Costly legal procedures then opposed Mr.
François Pinault et Mr. Chakib Slitine in the Paris courts.
After a long series of suits which were a priori impossible
to lose in 2001 (first instance), 2002 (appeal) and 2003
(appeal for review), and were all lost by François Pinault,
the Supreme Court finally rendered a unexpected opinion on
February 27, 2007 annulling all previously unfavourable
judgments for the millionaire. The position that was taken
by a good number of French Egyptologists who unequivocally
followed Mrs. Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, who
proclaimed high and low that the statue was authentic – an
antique masterpiece and a “historic testimony of great
value” according to the novelist – had not helped the
judges’ work during the first 5 years of procedures. This
unanimous position differed from opinions given overseas.
Finally, why would one ask for the annulment of the sale if
it was such a worthwhile masterpiece?
During the first instance trial (2001) and
subsequent appeal (2002), the legal ordering party had
expressly asked the lawyers not to put in question the
report given by the Louvre experts. The sale was originally
intended to offer the statue to the Louvre museum, “en
dation”. The report - co-signed by Christiane
Desroches-Noblecourt and Elisabeth Delange and registered on
April 6, 2000 – follows the first opinion given before the
sale by Elisabeth Delange, and concludes that it is an
antique statue, slightly posterior to the Sesostris II
reign: an even more rare and precious witness than a
contemporary portrait of the king. The discrepancy between
the dates mentioned in the catalogue and those proposed by
the Louvre experts did not permit François Pinault to win
the trials of 2001 and 2002.
However, in February 2002, following Dietrich
Wildung’s alert, an expert report written by Luc Watrin,
concluded without doubts that it was a rude fake. An old
student in Egyptology and oriental archaeology from the
Ecole du Louvre et de l’Université de Paris I Panthéon
Sorbonne, Luc Watrin is a professional archaeologist who has
held responsibilities on various preventive archaeology
operations for INRAP (previously AFAN) and for SRA d’Ile de
France. This researcher also has a good deal of experience
with excavation sites in Egypt. Contacted a few months
before the second trial (appeal) he emphasized the incorrect
argument of the Louvre reports of March 2000 and his
conclusion was the following:” posthumous statue of the
king… executed in a royal workshop… towards the end of the
Middle Empire … For this reason, the statue is a historic
witness of great value”. In their report, the Louvre experts
admitted that the statue is composed of elements belonging
to various periods, all within the Middle empire. For
example, they tie the ureaus to models produced under the
reign of Sesostris III, but date the siege of the XIII
dynasty (whereas numerous other researchers compare it to
the Old Empire style.) This is how they date the realization
of the statue to about 60 years after the reign of Sesostris
III, “a work of the Middle Empire, to the end of the XII
dynasty or beginning of the XIII dynasty”.
In February 2002, Luc Watrin starts by
writing a first report on the object and on the Louvre
conservators’ report. Most of the international
Egyptologists come out in favour of his expertise, which
concludes that the statue is a fake. The most categorical
are Helmut Satzinger, director of the museum of Egyptian
antiquities in Vienna, Claude Obsomer, philologist a Louvain
University and author of a book on Sesostris, and Marcel
Marée, conservator of the Egyptian British Museum and
specialist of the Middle Empire. He then writes several
other reports, one of which details more than 40 anomalies;
number which can be explained by the general proportions of
the art work which, according to the researcher, are
incorrect. Until today, only few details have been taken up
by the press (see Journal des Arts n°161, 12/2002). These
observations are complemented by a macro and micro analysis
report produced in a of iron tools laboratory by the
geo-chemist Bertrand Duboscq, and which concludes
unequivocally that the work is modern, and was manufactured
using recent tools in chrome steel or with a diamond blade.
Following this scientific proof which
annihilated once more her thesis of a pharaonic statue (« a
historic testimony of great value »), Mrs.
Desroches-Noblecourt sent defamatory attacks on the quality
of the work of the two researchers and attempted to
immediately justify the presence of iron particles. For the
first time ever, she advanced a theory on the use of iron
tools since the pyramids (middle of the third millenary) and
in the Middle Empire (start of the second millenary), even
though archaeological facts have already long established
that during these early periods they used tools made
exclusively of stone, copper, or bronze and that the first
iron tools ever found in Egypt were introduced by the
Assyrians about 1000 years after Sesostris III’s reign. In
addition, tools made of diamond (there are no diamond mines
in Egypt) were unknown in the Middle Empire even though the
commercial road between Egypt and the Congo is well known
today
It is in this context, in 2007, that the
Supreme Court judges annulled the previous judgments of 2002
and 2003 (see below). Following the Supreme Court judgment,
the Court of Appeals decides to annul the sale in judgment
n°07/05741 on January 27, 2009. This time, after
contradictory appeals, justice prevailed causing grief not
only to Expert-merchant Chakib Slitkine but also to Maitre
Oliver Coutau-Begarie and to the statue’s owner, Berlin
lawyer Heinz Eckert. Mr.Eckert, Coutau-Bégarie and Slitine
are condemned together to reimburse the Pinaults 777.380,99
Euros « plus interest at the legal rate starting June 23,
1999 », i.e. about 1.020.000 Euros in total plus 20 000
Euros for court and expert fees.
Finally, the Court of appeals annulled the
sale of November 10, 1998 (judgment of January 27,
n°07/05741). This decision was rendered in virtue of article
1110 of the civil code, which applies mostly to commercial
merchandise rather than cultural goods. The error on
substance was the only error held by the tribunal as the
original reason for the court assignation. The judges’
prudence was obvious in spite of maître Philippe Combeau’s
appeal who pleaded the fake as discreetly as possible
thereby helping to create a favourable atmosphere for the
sale annulment.
Prior to the January 27, 2009 judgment in an
article published in the News section of the GREPAL, it was
written that, in all probability, the court might chose to
validate the theory of the « posthumous effigy of the king »
given by the Louvre experts and annulling the sale based on
the fact that the statue was not a contemporary of the king
as stated in the sale catalogue. This solution would permit
to cancel sale while still paying respect to Mrs.
Desroche-Noblecourt.
From a legal point of view, and according to
an expert of this trial, it was a perfect case of a « closed
court dual ». There was no confrontation between both the
report of Mrs Delange and Desroches-Noblecourt and the two
contradictory scientific reports, and with the various
contradictory opinions by the international scientific
community. The debates were limited to skimming the surface.
All parties concerned accepted as a basis for discussion the
report given by the Louvre experts named by the Tribunal;
the only question the judges considered was: « should we
cancel and annul the sale? » Due to the absence of
confrontational arguments and counter expertise specifically
to not judge the Louvre expertise, a fundamental debate
could not be held in front of the court. Therefore, this
debate must be held outside the tribunal whose primary
function is to provide justice.
Above and beyond Mr. Pinault’s court victory,
it is important for the honour of the French Egyptology
community that authenticity be re-examined according to
scientific criteria, and not according to authoritative
positioning as manifested by the opinions of Mrs.
Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt et Elisabeth Delange, et Mr.
Nicolas Grimal et Jean Yoyotte. In this fundamental debate,
and with more than 40 stylistic and iconographic anomalies
as well as a tracing analysis proving that the statue was
sculpted using modern tools, how can the scientists justify
the authenticity of the statue?
Presently, the great majority of official
representatives of Egyptology in France are more often found
in antique shops rather than international seminars and
meetings (i.e. they were not many at the International
congress in Rhodes in 2008). Too much « friendship »
expertise has already damaged the seriousness of French
institutions, and if France intends to reposition itself in
the midst of international research, it is important that
scientific truth prime over all other considerations.
Wolfgang Lüger, January 2009
The Supreme Court judgment of February 27,
2007: the Sesostris III affair, epilogue?
Dossier on the Sesostris III affair: the
statue "Sesostris III" in François Pinault’s collection;
itinerary of a fake. |
