Professor of a state university selling forgeries to public museum (Versailles) should go straight to jail.
I would think a museum would be better at spotting forgeries.
A museum would rely on the expert opinion of a professor of art history from Paris.
This choad abused a position of trust in order to pull off his con.
Not that it's not a shitty thing to do, but it also seems like the last person you would rely on for the value of an object is the person selling it to you.
He had an accomplice make the furniture, presumably acting as a broker/authenticator.
Depending on how much they sold the stuff for, aged repros probably don't net nearly as much as the forgeries did. ancient chairs still in pristine condition, I could see going for a million or so. Reproductions? probably in the tens of thousands. figuring a 20k repo, you'd have to sell 50 of just to break a million, and that's ignoring costs of production, which is 50x more, give or take.
a quick google suggests something between 750k and 1.25 mil...
You're telling me the photo isn't of a wax figure?
"And what is your evidence?"
(submits photo)
"Guilty."
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A leading French art expert is to face trial on charges of forgery for building furniture that he falsely claimed to be from the 18th century and that was sold at high prices to buyers who included the Palace of Versailles.
Bill Pallot, an expert on 18th-century French furniture, is charged with implementing the scam between 2008 and 2015, in one of the biggest forgery scandals to rock the art world in recent years.
Pallot, 59, with his distinctive long hair and three-piece suits, is a familiar figure in France due to his regular publications and media appearances.
He was nicknamed “Père la chaise” – a play on Paris’s Père-Lachaise cemetery and the phrase “father of the chair”.
He is accused along with his fellow defendant Bruno Desnoues, a prominent woodcarver, of producing and selling chairs from 2007 to 2008 that were claimed to be historic pieces that had adorned the rooms of the likes of Madame du Barry, the mistress of Louis XV, and Marie Antoinette.
A former director of the Louvre museum, Jean-Luc Martinez, was charged last year with conspiring to hide the origin of archaeological treasures that investigators suspect were smuggled out of Egypt in the chaos of the Arab spring.
The original article contains 297 words, the summary contains 204 words. Saved 31%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Is that the new Doctor Who?
This was a plot in New Amsterdam starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau where he was an immortal
A community for discussing events around the World
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/