The Uffizi Gallery, Italy’s leading art gallery, has taken legal action against the French fashion house Jean Paul Gaultier for using the image from one of his most important paintings, Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus (1485).
The museum today issued a statement explaining its motivations for taking legal action. “The well-known fashion house has used the image of the immortal masterpiece that is in the museum to create some garments, also announcing them on its social networks and on its website and it did so, however, without asking for permission, without agreeing the modalities of use and without paying the rights, as expressly required by law”.
The Birth of Venus (1485) by Sandro Botticelli is considered a masterpiece of the Florentine Renaissance and one of the greatest treasures of the Uffizi.
In fact, according to the Cultural Heritage Code, the use of images of Italian public property is compulsorily subject to specific authorization and the payment of a fee.
Consequently, the legal department of the Uffizi has taken action and has sent the fashion house a letter in which it ordered the withdrawal of the garments with the image of the Venus from the market or, failing that, to contact the museum as soon as possible to agree to the commercial agreement necessary to rectify the abuse.
The Uffizi affirm that at the moment they have not received a response from Jean Paul Gaultier and therefore “legal actions have been initiated, which include not only the removal of the garments but also a claim for damages in favor of the museum”, added from the art gallery.
To support its complaint, the management of the Florentine museum has included a series of images from the Instagram account of the French fashion house where different garments with the image of the Birth of Venus are observed, as well as the work of The Creation of Miguel Angel in the Sistine Chapel for a collection that they define as ‘The grand opening of museums’.
Italy has a law since 1993 in the Code of Cultural Assets that allows the free use of the image of the paintings if it is done privately or for scientific, educational or informational purposes. However, its use for commercial purposes must be accepted and paid for.
