New York

THE Metropolitan Museum of Art will be able to keep one of its most famous Pablo Picasso paintings after a federal judge threw out a lawsuit by the estate of a German businessman who was seeking to recover the work that he was forced to sell at a discount while fleeing the Nazis.

The Actor is a highlight of the museum's second-floor galleries showing 19th and early 20th century European paintings and sculptures. The work depicts a young man on stage, clad in a pastel pink costume with blue accessories. The subject's pale, gaunt face and an exaggerated hand gesture evoke the artist El Greco.