LOS ANGELES, May 28 (UPI) -- Actress Elizabeth Taylor has gone to court to prove she owns Vincent Van Gogh's "View of the Asylum and Chapel at Saint-Remy."
The actress' father bought the painting, which hangs in her Los Angeles mansion, at a Sotherby's auction in London in 1963 for more than $169,000, the British newspaper The Independent reported Friday.
But, the great-grandchildren of Margarete Mauthner, who owned the painting in the 1930s, claimed it was looted by the Nazis when she was forced to flee Germany. They are demanding its return or a share of its sale proceeds.
While the value of the painting was not disclosed, it is likely to run into millions. When Taylor approached an auction house about selling the painting 14 years ago, it was valued at 10 million pounds ($18.3 million) although the sale did not go ahead.
Meanwhile, a Japanese collector paid $82.5 million for the artist's 1890 "Portrait of Doctor Gachet" when it was auctioned at Christie's in New York in 1990.
