The 71-year-old allegedly made it look like his partner had bought the artwork at auction in 2020 using money from a third party to hide the transaction from the inland revenue, whom he alleged owes around 715,000 euros.
Sgarbi, a famously volatile polemicist as well as one of Italy’s top art critics and historians, resigned from Giorgia Meloni’s government after Italy’s antitrust authority said that his private conferences and other lucrative activities were incompatible with his role as culture undersecretary.
He is also the subject of a separate criminal probe into an allegedly stolen painting.
ANSA
