MOSCOW, November 3 - RAPSI. The U.S. District Court of Connecticut has suspended the lawsuit filed by French citizen Pierre Konowaloff against Yale University for the ownership of Vincent Van Gogh's "The Night Cafe," the court documents read.

A copy of the document has been made available to the Russian Legal Information Agency (RAPSI).

Konowaloff asserts that he is the great-grandson and heir of Ivan Morozov, a Russian industrialist and aristocrat who owned the painting in 1918 and was consequently deprived of it after the Communist revolution.

Konowaloff seeks a court order to force Yale to sell him the painting with an estimated value of $120-$150 million. Earlier, the man filed a similar lawsuit against the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York seeking to return Paul Cezanne's "Madame Cezanne in the Conservatory."

The lawsuit was dismissed, but Konowaloff appealed the judgment.

The District Court of Connecticut suspended the hearing in his lawsuit against Yale until the court judgment in Konowaloff's lawsuit against the Metropolitan Museum comes into force.

Konowaloff informed the District Court of Connecticut earlier that the New York court's judgment runs counter to the Washington court's September 1 judgment in the dispute between Baron Mor Lipot Herzog's heirs and the Hungarian government.

The Federal Court of Washington earlier ruled that the baron's heirs have the right to claim back his paintings, which are presently exhibited in various museums in Hungary.

The paintings owned by Morozov were nationalized by the Soviet government in the wake of the country's October 17 Communist revolution. Part of his art collection was sold, including "The Night Cafe" and "Madame Cezanne in the Conservatory." The remaining paintings are now exhibited in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow and the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.