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You can refuse to accept an inheritance. It goes to whoever is next in line. If everybody refuses, the state gets to keep it.

You only get to refuse inheritance in full in most jurisdictions. You do not get to pick and choose to refuse.

Hence GP's counterfactual, "if this piece were the only thing you inherited and you were broke".

Sad though to refuse a 500k USD house with a negative 29 million USD bird in it.

Ok, fine - let's say you're going to inherit $100k and the art.