Judge Stops Sale Of a Picasso

A judge yesterday temporarily blocked the highly anticipated auction of one of Pablo Picasso's works worth up to $60 million while he decides if a wealthy Berlin banker of Jewish descent was forced to sell the painting by the Nazis during World War II.

U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff issued the order three days after Julius H. Schoeps, an heir to banker Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, filed a lawsuit in Manhattan to stop the sale of "Portrait de Angel Fernandez de Soto" by an art foundation started by Broadway musical composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. He blocked the sale at least until a hearing scheduled for this morning.

The lawsuit to stop the sale of the painting of Angel Fernandez de Soto, scheduled for tomorrow at Christie's auction house in Manhattan, was filed under seal on Friday and was unsealed yesterday. In the lawsuit, Mr. Schoeps sought to be declared the lawful owner of the painting and for the foundation to be forced to turn it over as restitution.

Christie's said the painting, estimated to sell for between $40 million and $60 million, was being sold by the foundation for income to be spent on a variety of charitable purposes.