Fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier is being sued by a museum in Italy, but why?

French fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier (centre) arrives with a guest during the 39th Cannes Film Festival, in Cannes on May 16, 1986. Photo: AFP

The Uffizi museum in Florence said Monday (Oct 10) it was suing Jean-Paul Gaultier's fashion house for "unauthorised use" of Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus", its Italian Renaissance masterpiece.

Painted by Sandro Botticelli in the mid-1480s, it shows the nude goddess Venus standing on a giant scallop shell, covering her loins with her long blonde hair.