Parisian expert Gilbert Pétridès, a specialist for works by Maurice Utrillo and Maurice de Vlaminck, was sentenced last January by a court in Tarascon, Southern France, to pay 50 000 FF (US $ 7,575) in damages for having delivered an authentication certificate for a de Vlaminck painting that was eventually considered as a fake. The 50 x 61 cm painting was bought for 350,000 FF (US $ 53,000) (Not inclusive of buyer premium) in November 1993 by the Parisian Galerie de la Présidence which placed its bid by telephone after its owner had seen a photograph of it reproduced in the sale catalogue of an auctioneer in Arles.
The gallery then discovered that the painting was a fake and seized justice to ask for a cancellation of the sale and the return of the money paid for it but the court dismissed its claim ruling that the buyer, being a professional, was responsible for having taken the risk of buying such work without seeing it physically. The court however sentenced M. Pétridès to pay damages to the gallery for not having adequately fulfilled his role.
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