The ruling means plans can go forward to rehang the paintings in the new $150-million museum scheduled to open May 19. Judge Stanley Ott of Montgomery County Orphans Court (the equivalent of a probate division judge in California’s Superior Courts) ruled Thursday that there’s no reason to revisit his 2004 decision allowing the Barnes Foundation to abrogate the will of collector Albert Barnes, which specified that his trove of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Modern masterworks should hang perpetually at his estate, each picture positioned just as he left it.īarnes, a patent medicine magnate, died in a car wreck in 1951, leaving an idiosyncratic display of works by Cezanne, Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Renoir, Degas, Modigliani and other European masters. The Barnes Foundation collection in Lower Merion, Pa., one of the most illustrious and distinctive art displays in the world, has received what may be a decisive legal green light for its hotly disputed transfer to a new museum under construction five miles away in downtown Philadelphia. This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links.