SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA.- The adopted daughter of the late Australian artist Sir Sidney Nolan yesterday renewed her court battle against her stepmother for three of his paintings, reported The Sydney Morning Herald. One of the three paintings titled "Italian Crucifix" was taken to the courtroom and removed after the judge became worried about the security of the work.

Last year Jinx Nolan attempted unsuccessfully to stop her stepmother Lady Mary Nolan from selling the paintings at Sotheby’s. The works were sold for a total of $700,000. Jinx Nolan said her mother, Cynthia, the second wife of the artist, left her the works when she killed herself in November 1976. According to Jinx Nolan’s lawyer, Peter Vickery, the three paintings were gifts from Sir Sidney to Cynthia Nolan and should have been included in her estate and passed on to Jinx Nolan. Sir Sidney kept the works and they went to Lady Mary, his third wife, when he died in 1992.

Mark Dreyfus, the lawyer for Lady Mary and Sotheby’s Australia, said : "It is a claim made on the basis of a handful of unsubstantiated documents and what we say is a jumble of equivocal and inadmissible hearsay."