The second day of hearing of the trial of the false furniture commissioned by Bill Pallot has largely confirmed what we already know. Wednesday the debates focused on the false furniture passed by the Kraemer gallery.
It took almost 9 years for this false furniture case, revealed in the light of day in early June 2016, is tried. The hearings, which started on Tuesday March 25, take place at the Pontoise Criminal Court until April 4. Six people are tried for their presumed involvement in the manufacture and sale of false furniture between 2008 and 2015, at the Palace of Versailles as well as private collectors, including an heir to the Hermès family and a prince of Qatar.
Among the accused are Bill Pallot, recognized expert in the 18th century furniture, in the employee of the Aaron gallery, and Bruno Desnoues, an ornamental sculptor on renowned wood (best worker in France) in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. The Parisian antique dealer Laurent Kraemer is also prosecuted in this case. The trial aims to determine the responsibilities of each defendant in this scam that has shaken the world of antique dealers and heritage. Wednesday and today the debates carried and relate to the deception as the tax component is treated on Monday.
The false seats acquired by the Palace of Versailles between 2008 and 2012 were at the heart of yesterday’s debates. It is a chair stamped Georges Jacob supposed to have been delivered for the cabinet of the meridian of Marie-Antoinette in Versailles; of a shepherdess stamped Jean-Baptiste Sené supposed to have been delivered for Madame Élisabeth in 1789 for her company fair at the Château de Montreuil pre-empted by Versailles in 2011 for 200,000 euros; A pair of folding folding foliots who have been delivered to Louise-Élisabeth de Parma, around 1750, bought from the Aaron gallery in 2012 for 380,000 euros and a pair of Jacob stamped armchairs supposed by Chatard for Marie-Antoinette.
Throughout the day, President Angélique Ledru-Tinseau reviewed these different furniture and heard the defendants, assisted by their lawyers, in a filled but calm room, bathed in the late afternoon. She tried to understand how their association worked.
“He made, I sold, I was his head he was his hands”said Bill Pallot; How long did it take to make a false? “Two years”said Bruno Desnoues. Both recognized that these seats were false, made to deceive. “If there had been the slightest grain of sand, if only one professional had noticed anything we would have stopped everything, destroyed everything. But it happened like a letter to the post office ”.
The debates dwell on the Jacob chair, bought by Versailles de Gré over the sotheby’s in 2011 for 420,000 euros. Bill Pallot explained that he asked Patrick Leperlier (expert at Sotheby’s at the time of the facts, now retired) to sell this chair at Sotheby’s London: “I never told her to sell her at the Palace of Versailles. I only knew it afterwards. Anyway, I did not sell anything in Versailles. I sold people who sold them to Versailles ”.
Bill Pallot also pointed out Brice omitil, another expert from Sotheby’s who worked with Patrick Leperlier, surprising that he did not notice the hoax, “While 5 years later he indicated in police custody that going to see the chair in Versailles, it was seen in the naked eye. Sotheby’s has not done his job ”.
Bruno Desnoues admitted to having made the Jacob chair “Completely thanks to photos and dimensions of another chair, from the same set and the same origin”this time belonging to the Guerrand-Hermès family, which they had previously restored.
The manufacture of folding, bought € 25,000 by Bill Pallot at the Galerie des Lacquers for the Aaron gallery and that an x -ray revealed to be period, is however disputed. “For me, they were good. We missed it “said Bill Pallot.
As for Chatard armchairs, bought in 2012 in London, the defendants indicate that they were authentic but of a simple model; They then decided to “The Enjolive”. Sotheby’s had to realize this because the sales house returned them to the seller, just like François-Joseph Graf, who refused the purchase.
The president and the prosecutor set out for a long time to seek what had motivated the defendants. Bruno Desnoues explained that he agreed to do these false because at the time, the workshop was going through a difficult financial period, with a drop in the volume of work. “And then in 2013, I was charged by the Palace of Versailles to redo the bed of Louis XVI – the consecration – so I stopped the false”. He claims to have never known where these furniture went. “In our profession, this does not wonder. I did this for the beauty of the gesture. Once the piece of furniture came out of my workshop, I don’t be interested in it anymore ”. And Bill Pallot to answer in turn: “To laugh, see if the market was going to realize it”. But like everyone else “Only saw fire”they caught up in the game and the bait of the gain did the rest.
But at that ” game “they have lost a lot: their work, their reputation, Bill Pallot had a tax recovery of 1.8 million euros (while these gains brought him 1.2 million euros) and his art collection for several decades, was dispersed at Me Rémy Le Fur in 2021.
