MOSCOW, May 6 (RAPSI, Sergei Feklyunin) - The Commercial Court of the Stavropol Territory has granted Hermitage Museum's lawsuit against fashion designer from St. Petersburg Iya Yots, prohibiting her from using Thomas Gainsborough's Lady in Blue in her designs, the court’s spokesperson told RAPSI.

Ms. Yots has been prohibited from using the image without the permission of the museum.

The court reargues this case. On September 23, Russia's Intellectual Property Court (IP Court), which was established in April 2013 to hear intellectual property cases both as a court of first instance and as a supreme court of appeals, granted a cassation appeal filed by Yots against the ruling prohibiting her from using the painting in her designs and remanded the case for a new trial.

Last February, the Commercial Court of the Stavropol Territory ruled in favor of the Hermitage Museum's lawsuit against designer, prohibiting her from using the painting. In May, the Sixteenth Commercial Court of Appeals upheld the ruling.

The "Portrait of a Lady in Blue" by Thomas Gainsborough was bequeathed to the Hermitage by Alexei Khitrovo and was given to the museum in 1916. It is the only example of the English artist's work in Russia. Some art historians believe that it is a portrait of the Duchess of Beaufort.