An important Paul Cezanne painting will remain in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday. An art collector's great-grandson had claimed the work was confiscated during the Russian revolution and should be returned to him as rightful heir.

"Madame Cezanne in the Conservatory" or "Portrait of Madame Cezanne" was part of an art collection owned by Russian industrialist Ivan Morozov whose paintings were seized as state property by the Bolsheviks in 1917.

Morozov's heir, Paris-based Pierre Konowaloff, wanted the return of the painting due to its seizure without legal process. But the U.S. courts barred his lawsuit citing the "act of state" doctrine.

Stephen Clark, a collector and museum trustee who died in 1960, bequethed the work to the Met.

Konowaloff, in a separate action, has also sought Van Gogh's "The Night Cafe" from Yale which was also a gift from Clark.