Abstract
When a work is falsely attributed to a deceased artist, can the heirs or other family members ask a court to establish that it is not authentic? The Italian Supreme Court distinguishes a fake from an authentic work: moral rights protect the bond with works actually created by the artist, whereas a false attribution may harm the deceased artist’s name and artistic identity. It follows that being an heir, by itself, is not enough. A person may bring an action if they can demonstrate a family interest worthy of protection; however, the court may rule on authenticity only when such a finding is necessary to protect that right, not in order to issue a substitute authentication.
The case: works attributed to Piero Manzoni
Piero Manzoni died in 1963. Many years later, certain works presented as his became the subject of a dispute between the artist’s siblings and those claiming ownership of them.
Elena and Giuseppe Manzoni applied to the Court of Milan seeking a finding that those works had not been created by their brother. The works were in the possession of a Danish collector, who claimed to have purchased them from Giovanni Schubert. Schubert’s heirs, however, in turn claimed ownership of the works.
The action was brought against all the parties who claimed to be owners. The judges were not being asked merely to express an opinion on attribution, but to issue a ruling on the works’ lack of authenticity that would have legal effects in the dispute between the parties.
After appointing a court expert, the Court found that the works were not authentic. The Schubert heirs appealed the decision, but the Milan Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal by judgment dated 3 June 2025.
According to the appellate judges, Elena and Giuseppe Manzoni were entitled to act under the provisions of copyright law that allow certain family members, after the artist’s death, to defend the authorship and integrity of the works. This protection, in their view, also included the possibility of denying that a falsely attributed work had been created by the artist.
The Schubert heirs brought the dispute before the Italian Supreme Court, challenging precisely this point. The Court had to determine whether moral rights also included the right to disclaim authorship of someone else’s work and, if not, what different interest entitled the artist’s siblings to bring the action.
Authentic work and false attribution: two different forms of protection
Claiming authorship of an authentic work and denying that a fake belongs to an artist’s body of work may appear to be two expressions of the same right. According to the Italian Supreme Court, they are not.
Article 20 of the Italian Copyright Law recognises the author’s right to claim authorship of the work and to object to alterations that may prejudice their honour or reputation. Moral rights therefore protect the bond between the artist and a work that the artist actually created.
If an authentic work by Piero Manzoni were attributed to another person, his right to be recognised as the author would be infringed. The same protection applies when an authentic work is distorted or presented in a way that is detrimental to the artist’s reputation.
When the work was never created by Manzoni, the prerequisite for moral rights is absent: there is no work by the artist whose authorship can be claimed or protected. As the Italian Supreme Court observes, the right to deny authorship of a fake “does not concern an intellectual work and is not grounded in an act of intellectual creativity”.
False attribution uses the artist’s name and reputation to confer on the work an identity it does not possess. The artist’s artistic identity is thereby impaired, meaning the public image of the author as it emerges from their body of work and the reputation built up over time.
Protection therefore shifts from moral rights to personality rights. The relevant provision, in particular, is Article 7 of the Italian Civil Code, which allows a person to react when their name is used improperly and in a potentially prejudicial manner. By analogy, this provision may also apply to the protection of artistic identity.
The legal classification of the infringed right also determines who may bring an action after the artist’s death.
When heirs and family members may take action
Where the dispute concerns a work actually created by the author, Article 23 of the Italian Copyright Law identifies the family members who, after the author’s death, may defend the authorship and integrity of the work. These persons do not necessarily coincide with heirs in the succession-law sense.
In cases of false attribution, the Italian Supreme Court applies Article 8 of the Italian Civil Code by analogy. That provision allows the protection of a person’s name also by someone who is not directly the holder of that right, provided that they have an interest based on family reasons worthy of protection.
Being an heir therefore does not automatically confer the power to take action against any disputed work. The court must assess, on a case-by-case basis, whether there is a concrete family interest in protecting the deceased artist’s name, reputation and artistic identity.
In the case of Piero Manzoni, Elena and Giuseppe stated that they had been continuously involved in protecting their brother’s name and image, also because counterfeit works were frequently in circulation. For this purpose, they had established the Archivio Opera Piero Manzoni, later transformed into the Fondazione Piero Manzoni, which is approached by those wishing to verify the attribution of a work and, if recognised, have it included in the official catalogues.
According to the Italian Supreme Court, these circumstances demonstrated a specific interest on the part of the siblings in preserving the artist’s standing. The circulation of works falsely attributed to Piero Manzoni could in fact tarnish his reputation in the art world.
It was not necessary to prove that each work had already caused specific financial damage to the family members. For the protection of a name, even potential harm of an exclusively moral nature is sufficient.
The limits of the Italian Supreme Court’s decision
As regards the legal basis of the action, the Italian Supreme Court agreed with the Schubert heirs. The right to deny that a fake work was created by the artist does not form part of moral rights. The Court of Appeal had therefore erred in relying on Articles 20 and 23 of the Italian Copyright Law.
The Italian Supreme Court nevertheless rejected the view that Elena and Giuseppe Manzoni lacked a legally protectable interest. Their family relationship with the artist and the activity they carried out to protect his name were sufficient to justify the action on the basis of the rules governing the right to a name.
The Court therefore recognised the family members’ interest in bringing the action, while correcting its legal basis. By Order No. 15821 of 22 May 2026, it set aside the appealed judgment and remitted the case to the Milan Court of Appeal, sitting in a different composition.
The decision therefore did not definitively determine the outcome of the dispute. It identified the right that may be relied upon and referred the case back to the lower court for examination under this different legal framework.
The order also clarifies a further limit. The authenticity of a work is a historical fact and cannot, by itself, be the subject matter of a court claim. A court may examine authenticity when this is necessary to determine whether a right has been infringed; it is not called upon to issue a substitute authentication or to carry out a purely historical-artistic assessment for its own sake.
In the Manzoni case, the finding that the works were fake was necessary to determine whether their attribution could prejudice the author’s name and artistic identity. The same limit arises when the owner seeks to challenge an archive’s refusal to authenticate a work: the owner cannot ask a court to issue an authentication in place of the archive, but authenticity may be examined where it affects a legally relevant relationship or right.
Heirs may therefore take action against a fake work attributed to the artist not because they are heirs, nor because they hold any power of authentication, but where the false attribution harms the deceased artist’s name and artistic identity and they demonstrate a family interest worthy of protection. Authenticity may be established in court only to the extent necessary to protect that right.
Revisionato da: Arlo Canella
Data di pubblicazione: 7 Agosto 2026
Ultimo aggiornamento: 2 Settembre 2026
© Canella Camaiora S.t.A. S.r.l. - Tutti i diritti riservati.
È consentita la riproduzione testuale dell’articolo, anche a fini commerciali, nei limiti del 15% della sua totalità a condizione che venga indicata chiaramente la fonte. In caso di riproduzione online, deve essere inserito un link all’articolo originale. La riproduzione o la parafrasi non autorizzata e senza indicazione della fonte sarà perseguita legalmente.
