ART

Matisse Battle Ends: The great-granddaughter of photographer Edward Steichen has won back a Matisse painting valued at $800,000 after a legal battle with the Museum of Modern Art. But 6-year-old Ariana Rodina Calderone Stahmer probably will never see the painting in her home because it will be sold to cover more than $100,000 in legal bills her family has to pay, the New York Times reported in Sunday editions. The newspaper said that the museum settled out of court on Friday, but terms of the arrangement in federal court in Bridgeport, Conn., were not made public. Henri Matisse presented Edward Steichen with the painting, “Vue de Collioure a l’Eglise,” in 1908 to thank him for helping arrange the first American exhibition of his works and to commemorate the birth of Steichen’s daughter, Kate. Steichen gave Kate Steichen the painting on her 53rd birthday, and she in turn loaned it to the museum in 1973, the year her father died. She died in 1988, and the museum and the family have argued over the painting ever since. The museum said that Kate Steichen donated the painting to the museum; the family said that she had bequeathed the painting to her grandniece, Ariana, who lives in Pennington, N.J.