Last month, Pornhub launched Classic Nudes, an interactive guide to some of the erotic art that can be found in major museums around the world. Following complaints from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, and the Louvre in Paris, audio tours and other content referencing artworks owned these institutions have been removed.
Though works from those three institutions are no longer part of Classic Nudes, content derived from paintings at other top museums—including the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the National Gallery in London, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York—still remain on as part of the guide.
Following the guide’s launch, the Uffizi announced that it was planning to sue Pornhub for copyright infringement. In particular, the Uffizi objected to Pornhub’s use of Titian’s famed Venus of Urbino (1538) in a pornographic reenactment with the amateur adult couple, My SweetApple. In an interview with the Art Newspaper, a representative for the Uffizi said that the museum viewed Pornhub’s use of its paintings as “totally illegal” and that it had “been done without any permission.”
The Louvre launched legal action alongside the Uffizi Gallery for the use of its late 16th-century painting Gabrielle d’Estrees and One of Her Sisters (ca. 1594) by an unknown artist, as did the Prado Museum for the use of works in their collection, including Francisco de Goya’s La Maja Desnuda (ca. 1797–1800).
When Pornhub launched Classic Nudes, the company said it saw the project as a means to help museums recover from the financial toll of the pandemic. By enticing audiences with the guide to erotic art, Pornhub hoped more people would visit the venerable institutions and support them. The guide was the latest in a series of campaigns launched by Pornhub this year to demonstrate the relationship between pornography and the arts. In a previous campaign, titled Remastured and launched this past May, Pornhub teamed up with artificial intelligence experts to restore centuries-old erotic films. The motto of the campaign, delivered in a teaser video, stated, “Because porn may not be considered art, but some art can definitely be considered porn.” It seems some museums disagree.
