Art quest

PARIS (Reuter) - Still smarting from Lenin's seizure of her father's art collection, a Russian heiress is trying to stop the return to Russia of paintings by Henri Matisse on show in Paris. Today, a Paris court will hear Irina Shchukin's request to seize some masterpieces from the Matisse exhibition at the Pompidou Centre.

The suit covered some of the 20 paintings on loan from the Pushkin museum in Moscow and St Petersburg's Hermitage museum. Ms Shchukin, 77, is demanding compensation and recognition of her moral rights to her father's collection.