A one-of-a-kind Renoir painting the size of a napkin is at the center of an intense legal battle between a museum that claims it was stolen and a Virginia woman who claims she bought it for $7.

The tiny work of art is an 1879 landscape by the Impressionist painter titled "Paysage Bords de Seine."

In court papers filed this week, the Baltimore Museum of Art claims the painting was stolen in 1951. As evidence, the Museum provided a 60-year-old police report, old museum catalogues and a receipt showing that a patron bequeathed the painting to the museum.

In her own court filings, filed last month, Martha Fuqua contests the museum's claim, saying she purchased the painting at a flea market in 2009 for just $7.

The legal dispute began last September when the painting was expected to command at least $75,000 in a scheduled auction at the Alexandria, Va.-based Potomack Company auction house.

Just before the auction, a reporter for The Washington Post uncovered documents from the Baltimore Museum of Art showing that the painting was stolen from the museum in 1951.

The auction was canceled as a result and the FBI seized the painting and opened an investigation into the theft.

The two sides will meet in court again next week.

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