Andrew Lloyd Webber’s art foundation has been temporarily stopped from selling a Picasso work over claims it was forcibly sold to the WW2 German government.

A US judge is blocking the auction, due to take place at Christie’s in New York until the matter is fully investigated.

The piece, Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto, taken from the artist’s Blue Period, is worth up to $60m (£31.5m).

A German man claims he is heir to a Jewish banker who was forced to sell the painting during World War II.

Posted: 11|7|06 at 2:14 pm. Filed under: Auction News.