About Us

Why we can print these — and what we won't

Every painting we print is in the public domain.

In the UK, copyright in an artistic work lasts for the artist's lifetime plus 70 years. After that, the work belongs to everyone.

That's why you'll find Van Gogh, Monet, Klimt, Hokusai and Vermeer in our collection, and why you won't find Picasso, Matisse, Kahlo or Dalí. Those artists died within the last seventy years, their estates still hold the rights, and printing them without a licence would be infringement.

We check the artist's date of death before anything goes into the range. It's an unglamorous rule and it's the whole basis of what we do.

Where the image comes from matters too

A painting being out of copyright doesn't automatically mean every photograph of it is.

Museums and archives often assert rights in their own reproductions, and a high-resolution scan can carry its own claim depending on how it was made.

We source from institutions that have explicitly released their collections for open use — the Rijksmuseum, the Met, the National Gallery of Art in Washington and similar open-access programmes.

Every product page names the artist, the title and the year. That's partly respect and partly practical: it's the information you'd want if you were about to wear it.

What happens when a painting meets fabric

Oil on canvas is not ink on cotton. Anyone who tells you a print matches the original is selling you something.

What we can do is be specific about the gap.

Detail survives better than colour. A high-resolution scan holds brushwork, cracking and texture remarkably well. Colour is harder — the pigments Van Gogh used shift under fabric dye in ways no printer fully resolves, and the deep blues in Starry Night are the hardest of all.

Print method decides what you get. Direct-to-garment printing handles gradients and fine detail, which is what a painting needs. Screen printing gives flatter, bolder colour and struggles with subtle tonal shifts. We use DTG for anything with detail, and we say so on the product page.

Fabric colour changes the image. The same print on white, natural and black cotton produces three different results, because the base shows through. Where a piece is available on more than one colour, we show each.

Washing a printed garment

Inside out, cold, no fabric conditioner. Conditioner sits on the print and dulls it.

Air dry if you can. A tumble dryer is what cracks prints, not washing.

That advice costs us repeat sales from people replacing faded shirts. It's also true.

What we look for

Public domain status, verified by the artist's date of death.

An open-access source for the image file.

Resolution high enough for the print size. A file that looks fine on screen can fall apart at A3 on a canvas print.

Garment weight and fibre — a print is only as good as what it sits on. We state the fabric weight.

What we don't do

Claim we made the art. We didn't. These are works by people who died long before any of us, and we print them because the law and their estates allow it.

Inflate prices to discount them. The price is the price.

Manufacture urgency. No countdown timers, no "only two left" when there are two hundred.

Overclaim. A printed shirt won't make you an art lover or prove you're one. What it does is smaller: you get to carry around something you like looking at.

Ask before you order

Not sure which size to take, how a painting reproduces at a particular scale, or whether an image works better on a dark or light base?

Email us. Tell us the piece and what you're after, and we'll tell you honestly — including when the answer is that a particular painting doesn't print well at that size.

We'd rather give good advice than process a return.

How we make it straightforward

• Free UK delivery on every order
• 30 days to change your mind, including on sale items
• Changed your mind or ordered the wrong size? That's covered — no reason needed
• Five years to pursue a claim for a fault, under Scots law
• A reply within one working day, from a person

Where we are

Muserelle LTD is an online store registered in Glasgow. There's no gallery or showroom — the address below is for correspondence, not visits, and returns can't be dropped off there.

Email: support@muserelle.com
Phone: +44 141 880 3200
Customer service: Monday to Friday, 9:00 am–9:00 pm UK time

Saturday, Sunday and bank holidays: closed.

Muserelle LTD
Business address: 763 Barrhead Road, Glasgow G53 6AG, United Kingdom