[Source: Reuters]

The heirs of former Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi will keep some of the thousands of artworks he amassed largely from TV shopping channels.

A family spokesperson said on Friday, after media reports that the collection faced destruction.

Italian media say the billionaire, who died in June aged 86, had rented a huge warehouse near his villa in the town of Arcore to house some 25,000 mainly low-value items, including paintings and statues, bought from late-night TV auction shows.

The warehouse has maintenance costs around 800,000 euros ($846,000) a year, according to La Repubblica newspaper.

Vittorio Sgarbi, an art critic and former lawmaker with Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, told state TV RAI this week that the former prime minister spent around 20 million euros to create the collection.

According to pictures in La Repubblica, it includes paintings of nudes, and portraits and statues of Berlusconi.

Sgarbi told the paper the collection was “monstrously entertaining”, but of little value, with only “six of seven” deemed interesting.

“There was no research, he worked with the idea of buying a bunch of artworks indifferent to what they were,” Sgarbi told RAI’s Report programme, adding that TV auctioneers could not believe the former prime minister wanted to buy from them.

“He would start saying ‘I am Berlusconi’ and they would hang up the phone thinking it was a joke.”

The family spokesperson said the collection had sentimental value and denied reports it was being dismantled.

Each of Berlusconi’s five children will keep some for themselves, with “the most appropriate destination” for the rest to be decided later, the spokesperson said.

Forbes estimated that Berlusconi and his family had assets worth around $6.8 billion, of which around two thirds were held by holding company Fininvest.