A U.S. District Court judge ruled this week that Pasadena’s Norton Simon Museum legally owns Lucas Cranach’s “Adam and Eve,” a pair of masterpieces painted around 1530, when he dismissed the claim by an heir to a former owner in a case that has dragged on for a decade.

Judge John Walter ruled the heir’s family and the firm that handled the family’s post-World War II affairs had invalidated their rights of ownership for failing to meet mandated deadlines for filing an ownership claim to the pictures.