Sir Elton John has won 116,000 Euros in damages and costs from a Paris art dealer who sold him sculptures that turned out to be fake. In a judgment issued on June 26, the dealer, Jean Renoncourt, was ordered to pay the Mr.John the purchase price of $360,000 plus interest from the time the statues were sold in 1996.
The four statues, representing figures from Greek mythology, were sold as the work of the Italian sculptor Luigi Grossi, who died in 1795.
The judgment comes after a long legal battle by the singer, who discovered the forgery when he had the statues assessed for insurance purposes.
In 2003, he was ordered to pay Renoncourt 21,000 euros in legal costs after an attempt to win damages was dismissed for lack of evidence.
