A long-standing lawsuit over the sale of a 19th-century painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau has been lost by New York State-based Catholic nuns who sued a Santa Fe, N.M., art dealer and a local art appraiser.

In 2008, the nuns claimed that dealer Mark Zaplin and appraiser Mark LaSalle had colluded to defraud them of $1.7 million from the sale of their painting "Notre Dame des Anges," an 1889 work by Bouguereau depicting the Virgin Mary holding the Christ child.

The Daughters of Mary Mother of Our Savior and St Joseph's Chapel, in Round Top, N.Y., had sold the work in 2006 for $450,000 to Zaplin after LaSalle's appraisal. Zaplin later sold the work to Dallas art dealer Brian Roughton for about $2.5 million.

Contending negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract, express or implied warranty, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, deceptive business practices and violation of the penal law regarding stealing property, the nuns sued Zaplin and LaSalle for $1.75 million, plus $50 million in punitive damages.

On Monday, a jury ruled in favor of Zaplin and LaSalle.

A separate case involving Zaplin was also recently settled, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

The 2009 lawsuit filed against the Zaplin-Lampert Gallery by the estate of T.C. Cannon, over  woodcut prints based on one of the artist’s oil paintings, was concluded with the rights of reproduction left in the hands of the artist's sister, Joyce Cannon Yi, who had instigated the suit.