A website has been set up to trace owners of works like this one

Justice Marylin Diamond of State Supreme Court in Manhattan rejected the Wildenstein's attempt to have the case dismissed on Wednesday.

She said that the Wildenstein had not submitted "any proof of when, where and from whom the Wildenstein family originally obtained the manuscripts".

Warin is the great-nephew of Alphonse Kann who owned more than 1,200 works by Picasso, Manet and Matisse.

He also owned a set of eight rare illuminated manuscripts known as Books of Hours, from the 15th, 16th and 17th Centuries.

This Van Gogh was returned to owners heirs

The manuscripts fell into Nazi hands after Kann fled to England in 1940 and were missing until 1996 when the Wildenstein Gallery tried to sell them in New York.

Warin alleges that he sought to have the manuscripts returned but the Wildenstein's refused.

"When the manuscripts were discovered at the Wildenstein Gallery, each bore the Nazi inventory number identifying them as belonging to the Kanns," said Stephen Sommerstein, the lawyer for Kann's heirs.

Richard Bernstein, a lawyer for the Wildenstein, has countered that their case was "baseless" and should be dismissed.

He argued that the Wildensteins can show where it purchased several of the manuscripts.

Earlier this year a Scottish gallery found this Cezanne was looted

The Wildensteins say that Georges Wildenstein owned the manuscripts before he fled Paris for London in 1940 and that the Nazis mistakenly recorded their ownership.

In her 22-page decision, Judge Marylin Diamond rejected the request to dismiss the lawsuit and ordered a preliminary conference for 25 September when a pre-trial schedule will be set.

This legal battle comes at a time when many heirs of the Nazis victims are seeking to have stolen art works returned.

Many museums and galleries worldwide are also identifying works as having been stolen during World War II and are seeking their original owners.