Transport officials in London have reversed a decision to ban a poster displaying a 16th-century painting of the goddess Venus from the city’s Underground train system because it was too sexual.

The poster advertises a show at the Royal Academy of Arts of works by Lucas Cranach the Elder that’s due to open March 8.

“Given huge volumes of advertising that we carry, we won’t get it right every time,” a spokesman announced over the weekend. “On reflection, in this context the Cranach exhibition poster should not have been rejected and we’ve now approved the advertisement to be carried on the Tube.”

Officials had originally said the poster breached their guidelines, which bars ads that “depict men, women or children in a sexual manner, or display nude or semi-nude figures in an overtly sexual context”.

John Whittingdale, chair of the UK’s House of Commons select committee on culture, media and sport, had called the decision to ban the poster “bonkers”.

Meanwhile, officials at the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne have shown that they certainly know how to put a bit of marketing spin on a bad situation.

It all began when the museum discovered that a painting believed to be by French impressionist Claude Monet is a forgery. The painting, Monet’s “On the Banks of the Seine”, was unmasked as a fake when restorers prepared it for an exhibition on the Impressionist period.

Spokesman Stefan Swertz said that there had long been suspicions over the origins of the picture, acquired by the museum in 1954.

But instead of taking down the fake (pictured), they have decided to keep it on display to show “the capabilities of modern technology in examining paintings”. 

“We will use this as a learning process, to show how to recognize forged art,” Mr Swertz said.