Legal battle in US federal court over "looted" Picasso painting

The US government has claimed custody of a Pablo Picasso painting worth an estimated US$ 10 million that was stolen by Nazis during World War II and is now at the center of a legal battle. The move allows a federal court in Los Angeles to claim jurisdiction over a case pitting the painting's current owner, a Chicago art collector, against the grandson of a Jewish woman who sent it to a Paris gallery for safekeeping before fleeing Berlin. Last Thursday, FBI agents and US marshals served Marilynn Alsdorf with an order barring her from moving the painting from a safe in her Chicago home until a court decides who it belongs to. The federal complaint alleges that in December 2002, Alsdorf illegally moved the 1922 oil painting, known as "Femme en blanc" (Woman in White), from California to Illinois. Federal authorities said the painting was subject to forfeiture because it is against the law to knowingly transport stolen goods across state lines.