"We are strongly opposed to the use of this work to advance any political agenda," Olivier Meslay, the director of the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, told The Associated Press. "We did not supply the painting to the AfD," he said, using the acronym for the party Alternative for Germany.
The 1866 oil-on-canvas painting "Slave Market," by Jean-Leon Gerome, shows a black, apparently Muslim slave trader displaying a naked young woman with much lighter skin to a group of men for examination.
The AfD's Berlin branch said they put up 30 posters of the painting across the German capital with the slogan: "So that Europe won't become Eurabia."
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The party, known for its anti-Muslim stance, said it won't take down any of the posters.