California Revenue and Taxation Code § 217

(a) Except as provided in subdivision (d), the following articles of personal property that have been made available for display in a publicly owned art gallery or museum, or a museum that is regularly open to the public and that is operated by a nonprofit organization that qualifies for exemption pursuant to Section 23701d, shall be exempt from taxation: (1) Original paintings in oil, mineral, water, vitreous enamel, or other colors, pastels, original mosaics, original drawings and sketches in pen, ink, pencil, or watercolors, or works of the free fine arts in any other media including applied paper and other materials, manufactured or otherwise, that are used on collages, artists’ proof etchings unbound, and engravings and woodcuts unbound, lithographs, or prints made by other hand transfer processes unbound, or original sculptures or statuary. As used in this subdivision: (A) “Sculpture” and “statuary” shall include professional productions of sculptors only whether in round or in relief, in bronze, marble, stone, terra cotta, ivory, wood, metal, or other materials, or whether cut, carved, or otherwise wrought by hand from the solid block or mass of marble, stone, alabaster, or from metal, or other materials, or cast in bronze or other metal or substance, or from wax or plaster, or constructed from any material or made in any form as the professional productions of sculptors, only. (B) “Original” when used to modify the words “sculptures” and “statuary” shall include the original work or model and the first 10 castings, replicas, or reproductions made from the sculptor’s original work or model, with or without a change in scale, regardless of whether or not the sculptor is alive at the time the castings, replicas, or reproductions are completed. (C) “Painting,” “mosaic,” “drawing,” “work of the free fine arts,” “sketch,” “sculpture,” and “statuary” shall not include any articles of utility, articles designed for industrial use, or any articles that are made wholly or in part by stenciling or any other mechanical process. (D) “Etchings,” “engravings,” “woodcuts,” “lithographs,” or “prints made by other hand transfer processes,” shall include only works that are printed by hand from plates, stones or blocks etched, drawn, or engraved with handtools and do not include works that are printed from plates, stones or blocks etched, drawn, or engraved by photochemical or other mechanical processes. (2) Original works of the free fine arts, that are not described in paragraph (1), are subject to regulations, as the board may prescribe, to prove that the article represents some school, kind, or medium of the free fine arts. As used in this paragraph, “original works of the free fine arts” shall not include any article of utility or any article designed for industrial use. (b) When making a claim for an exemption pursuant to this section, a person claiming the exemption shall provide all information required and answer all questions in an affidavit, under penalty of perjury. The assessor may require other proof of the facts stated before allowing the exemption. The affidavit shall be accompanied by a certificate of the director or other officer of the art gallery or museum in which the property for which an exemption is claimed under this section was made available for display that the property was available for public display in the art gallery or museum for the period specified in subdivision (e). (c) Sections 255 and 260 shall be applicable to the exemption provided by this section. (d) The exemption provided by subdivision (a) shall not apply to any work of art loaned by any person who holds works of art primarily for purposes of sale. (e) The exemption provided by this section shall not apply unless the property was made available for public display in the art gallery or museum for a period of 90 days during the 12-month period immediately preceding the l

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