"Classic Nudes": Uffizi and Louvre are examining legal action against Pornhub nude painting guide

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Botticelli's »Birth of Venus«: The original in the Uffizi, reproduced in the video by Cicciolina

Photo: UniversalImagesGroup / Getty Images

The porn platform Pornhub, which was founded in Montreal, has been criticized for its dissemination of depictions of sexual violence.

Apparently, in order to correct the bad reputation, Pornhub attracts attention again and again through PR campaigns.

The website and app "Classic Nudes", which the company recently published, should be regarded as such.

The welcoming text says that many do not see pornography as art, but that some works of art can definitely be described as pornographic.

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"Classic Nudes" sees itself as an interactive museum guide "to the sexiest scenes in the most famous museums in the world". Works from the Uffizi in Florence, the Musée d'Orsay and the Louvre in Paris, the Prado in Madrid, the National Gallery in London and the New York Metropolitan Museum are presented - and so that it doesn't get too Eurocentric, under »Another Perspective «also art works of art from other cultures. In the tradition of the »tableaux vivants«, some of the art-historically praised nude scenes are then transformed into moving images.

A comparatively adult version can be seen in an advertising clip on YouTube, where Ilona Staller, former porn actress, politician and ex-wife of the art star Jeff Koons, transforms into the nude from Botticelli's »Birth of Venus«.

The original painting hangs in the Uffizi.

As reported by the Italian media, the museum in Florence, headed by the German art historian Eike Schmidt since 2015, reacted in piquancy to the apparently unsolicited use of its exhibits.

Schmidt himself did not want to comment on the request of the "Corriere della Sera", but the newspaper cites sources according to which the house had turned to the responsible government agencies because they saw a serious copyright infringement in the Pornhub guide.

Even in the Louvre in Paris, where the portrait of "Gabrielle d'Estrées with her sister" stimulated the imagination of Pornhub experts, they do not want to accept this approach to the exhibited works: "Pornhub has heard from our lawyers", quoted the US website "Daily Beast" a spokesman for the museum: "We expect the works to be removed immediately."

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