François Pinault, owner of Christie's, no longer wants an Egyptian statue representing Pharaoh Sesostris III that he bought in Drouot in 1998 despite a report from the curator of the Louvre and Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, a specialist on Egyptian antiquities, proving that such piece was genuine, well-informed sources said on July 1st 2000. Pinault had bought the statue for some $ 900,000 but comments made by the curator of a German museum led him to believe that such piece was a fake. His ensuing court action aimed at cancelling the sale prompted judges to appoint two well-known experts to examine the litigious piece, which had been presented by Chakib Slitine, acting as expert for the sale, as made during the 12th Egyptian Dynasty.
Despite such positive report, François Pinault has maintained his demand on the ground that the statue was not executed during the reign of Sesostris but after. Mr Slitine retorted that the owner of Christie's was acting in bad faith because he had never stated that the statue had been made when Sesostris was alive. “I wrote in the sale catalogue that it was a statue of the Middle Empire, 12th Dynasty as the report confirmed and pinpointed that it was an idealised portrait of the sovereign and not a representation made when he was alive”, he stressed.
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