Is it legal to buy a copy of a famous painting?
Yes, as long as the original is in the public domain. Copyright protects a painting for a limited time. Once it runs out, anyone may copy it, sell the copy and hang it at home. That covers the Old Masters, the Impressionists and most painters who died before the middle of the 20th century.
When a painting enters the public domain
The European Union, the UK and many other countries protect a work for the artist’s life plus 70 years, counted to the end of the year. A painter who died in 1955 entered the public domain on 1 January 2026.
The United States counts from publication instead. As of 2026, works published before 1931 are in the public domain there, and every 1 January another year joins them.
Other countries use other terms, some shorter and some longer. So a painting can be free in one country and protected in the next, which is why careful sellers go by the stricter rule.
Van Gogh (died 1890), Klimt (1918) and Monet (1926) are free everywhere. Magritte (died 1967), Picasso (1973) and Dalí (1989) are still protected in Europe, and most of their work is protected in the US too.
What about museum photographs?
A copy is usually painted from a photograph of the original, so it is fair to ask whether the museum owns that photo. For a straight photograph of a flat, public domain painting, generally not. In the US, the court in Bridgeman v. Corel (1999) held that an exact photo of a public domain painting is not original enough for copyright. In the EU, Article 14 of the 2019 Copyright Directive says the same: a faithful reproduction of a public domain artwork gets no new copyright.
What a copy can’t do
It can’t be passed off as the original. Selling a copy as the real thing is fraud, however good the copy is. A reproduction is sold as a reproduction.
For a painting from your own photo, the rule is simpler: the photo has to be yours, or you need permission from whoever took it.
How we handle it
We only paint reproductions of public domain works, and we decline paintings that are still under copyright. For paintings from a customer’s photo, the photo must be theirs or used with permission. Questions and answers
This page is general information, not legal advice. If you plan to sell copies yourself, check the rules in your own country.
