France This article is more than 2 months oldFrench art expert faces trial for allegedly forging 18th-century furniture
This article is more than 2 months oldBill Pallot is charged with building pieces to sell at high prices to buyers including Palace of Versailles
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.
According to an order issued by the investigating magistrate this week, Pallot and five others will face trial.
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.
The scam continued unnoticed for years despite the warning signs until investigators finally noticed abnormalities from 2014. When the full scandal erupted in 2016, the ministry of culture ordered an audit of Versailles’ acquisitions policy.
The scandal is not the only one to shake up the rarefied world of France’s top museums in recent years. 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.
France’s highest court, the court de cassation, on Wednesday rejected an appeal brought by Martinez to have the charges dropped.
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