LOS ANGELES, CA.- Marilynn Alsdorf of Chicago has decided to pay Thomas Bennigson, the grandson of a Jewish woman whose Pablo Picasso painting was stolen by Nazis during World War II, $6.5 million to keep the painting and stop the costly and complicated legal dispute, announced her attorney Richard Chapman. The estimated value of the painting is $12 million. Marilynn Alsdorf will be allowed to sell the work once a federal judge approves the settlement.

Chapman stated that Alsdorf and her husband purchased the painting in 1975 for $375 from a New York gallery. He said, "This was a reputable dealer, not a back-alley thing. She had no knowledge that there had been any impropriety at all."

In 2002 Alsdorf tried to sell the painting but experts notified the Art Loss Register in London, which investigated its history.