Two respected French antiques experts, Georges "Bill" Pallot and Bruno Desnoues, have been convicted of selling forged historic chairs once claimed to belong to French royals like Marie Antoinette. Both were sentenced to four months of jail time alongside longer suspended sentences for their participation in the creation and sale of fake 18th-century chairs, which were purchased by collectors including the Palace of Versailles and a Qatari royal family member. They will not serve additional time as they had spent four months in pre-trial detention.
In a parallel development, Laurent Kraemer, implicated in failing to verify the authenticity of the chairs, and his gallery were acquitted of gross negligence in deception. The court's ruling marked the conclusion of a lengthy nine-year investigation that sent shockwaves through the French antiques community. The court in Pontoise, near Paris, fined Pallot €200,000 (£169,500) and Desnoues €100,000.
Pallot expressed that while the financial penalties were "a little harsh," he was relieved his apartment in Paris would not be confiscated, according to reports by AFP. The prosecution contended that Kraemer and his gallery inadequately checked the authenticity of the items they purchased before reselling them—claiming to have sold two chairs for €2m to Qatari prince Mohammed bin Hamad Al Thani. However, their innocence was upheld, with defense attorneys asserting that the gallery had been misled by the forgers and had no knowledge of the chairs' counterfeit status.
Pallot, once the leading authority on French 18th-century chairs and a lecturer at the renowned Sorbonne University, had access to detailed inventories of royal furniture from Versailles. He and Desnoues, a skilled sculptor, crafted replicas of chairs not accounted for in historical records. Pallot remarked during the trial, "I was the head and Desnoues was the hands. It went like a breeze. Everything was fake but the money."
Prosecutor Pascal Rayer commented that the case uncovered the hidden world of antique furniture dealing, exposing systemic vulnerabilities and conflicts of interest within this niche marketplace. He emphasized the pressing need for improved regulation to ensure transparency and fairness. The ramifications of this fraudulent scheme extend beyond Pallot and Desnoues, as the investigation highlighted long-standing issues in the art and antiques market, paralleling other high-profile cases such as that of the late Jean Lupu, who faced accusations of similar forgery before his death in 2023.
