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Whether it’s a painting, an antique piece of furniture, a tapestry, a marble sculpture, or a print, when selling an artist’s work, the main players in the system are certainly art galleries and auction houses, truly powerful structures in the secondary market: they deal exclusively with the resale of established artistic values.

The purchase takes place through another dealer, through an auction house, or directly from private individuals; typically, these are works by deceased artists or those who have already achieved fame.

Auction houses meticulously follow market trends and have a constantly updated database at their disposal: they can provide their clientele with an accurate opinion on the current value of an object.

We offer a professional and transparent valuation of your items, thanks to our experience in the sector and the expertise of our team. We propose competitive prices, designed to guarantee maximum value both in buying and selling. Our goal is always the same: complete customer satisfaction, at the center of every choice we make.

Tax Aspects of Selling a Work of Art

It’s good to know that, for income tax purposes, the sale of works of art or antiques by a private collector is not, in principle, subject to taxation as long as the requirement of occasionality exists. In fact, if the buying and selling of works were to acquire the character of regularity, the resulting income would qualify as business income and would therefore be subject to taxation.

Just as an example and not exhaustively, we specify here that when a private individual sells works of art, antiques, or collectibles received through inheritance or donation, business activity can be excluded.

This exclusion is independent of the amount of income: this applies both in cases where the sale is carried out in bulk with a single transaction, and in cases where it is carried out at different times and to multiple buyers, as these are not essentially systematic purchase and resale operations.

This principle obviously ceases to apply the moment it becomes evident that the individual has set up a business-type organization.

It is not possible to completely rule out the occurrence of accidental damage: it takes very little for a precious vase to break, an ancient carpet to be irreparably stained, or a painting to fall to the ground and be seriously damaged.

The need to protect oneself from these events is why it’s rare for an art enthusiast not to consider taking out insurance coverage to protect the assets and artworks they own.

For estimating the value to be insured, insurance companies make their own appraisers available: it’s reasonable to wonder, however, whether these appraisers are completely free from interests.

In our opinion, requesting a second external opinion is essential both in the preliminary assessment of the value of works for the purpose of taking out an insurance policy, and in the delicate phase following any unfortunate damage to the insured assets.

The expert’s opinion is fundamental to precisely define the insured values and the extent of coverage to be included in the contract, and it’s also worth considering that market fluctuations could make an appraisal obsolete after just two years.

It should be noted that while the cost of the insurance company’s expert consultation for damages is often free, as it is normally provided for by the insurance policy itself, a second privately requested appraisal does have costs.

Consider, however, that these costs could be amply repaid by obtaining the maximum compensation from the insurance company. This reason alone is sufficient to strongly recommend a party appraisal of the damage caused by a harmful event.

The trade, exit from, or entry into national territory of artworks and cultural goods that present an artistic, historical, archaeological, or ethno-anthropological interest is regulated by the Consolidated Text of Cultural Heritage (Legislative Decree 42/2004) and its subsequent amendments (Legislative Decree 62-63/2008 ex Law No. 88/1998 ex 1089/1939).

The export outside the European Union territory of artworks (paintings and pictures, watercolors, gouaches and pastels, modern and contemporary mosaics, engravings, prints, serigraphs and original lithographs and related matrices, original posters, modern and contemporary original works, statuary art or sculptural art and copies obtained with the same process as the original) that are more than fifty years old and do not belong to the author, is governed by the EEC regulation which designates the export offices of the Ministry as the competent authorities for issuing export licenses – which occurs simultaneously with the issuance of the free circulation certificate – which are valid for six months. The license can be issued, by the same office that issued the certificate, even if not simultaneously with the certificate, but not later than thirty months from the issuance of the latter.

In these lines, we provide details on the alienation of antique objects, namely those assets that the regulations identify as being more than 50 years old; for these works, it is necessary to request a free circulation certificate from the Competent Superintendence. The request must include the description of the object, the period, the dimensions, and its value. The process normally takes about 40 days.

In the case of objects of particular cultural interest to the nation, the Superintendence has the authority to deny the license and issue a constraint decree, which prevents the transfer of the object outside the national territory.

If you intend to sell a constrained object, only on Italian soil, a request must be made to the Competent Superintendence, communicating that a buyer has been found for the object itself.

For the completion of the procedure, the buyer’s personal data and the sale price are required; if the Superintendence does not exercise its right of first refusal and purchase within 60 days, the owner has the right to submit a new communication in which they declare that they have completed the alienation and also specify the buyer’s data and the sale price.

At this point, the competent Superintendence issues the new constraint decree in the name of the new owner.

Here we wanted to give an overview of the regulations; however, we remind you that the export of artworks abroad requires perfect knowledge of the jurisdiction in this matter, which may be subject to changes: we cannot therefore refrain from warning readers about the reliability of information found online, which is not always updated to the latest Decree Law.