A lawyer representing Maria-Louise Bissonnette argued that the 84-year-old owns the painting legally, after inheriting it from her stepfather, The Providence (R.I.) Journal reported. At a hearing Wednesday, David Levy also said that the estate of Max Stern, the art dealer, waited too long to pursue a claim.

The German government ordered Stern to get rid of his Dusseldorf gallery. When Stern auctioned his art work, Bissonnette's stepfather bought a work by Franz Xaver Winterhalter titled Girl from the Sabiner Mountains, which has an appraised value of $67,000 to $94,000.

Thomas Kline, representing the Stern estate, said that the contents of the gallery were sold for below-market value and that Stern, who moved to France within a month of the auction, never received the money.

The estate learned of the painting's whereabouts in 2006 when Bissonnette put it up for sale at an auction house in Cranston, R.I. Stern left his estate to three universities, McGill and Concordia in Montreal and Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

The appeals court is expected to rule within three months.