The long lost Wizard of Oz dress worn by Judy Garland is up for auction due to an ownership dispute

A US District Judge in Manhattan has suspended auctions of a long-lost dress worn by Judy Garland in 'The Wizard of Oz' then a relative of its late owner claimed it was hers.

According to court documents, Barbara Ann Hartke, 81, filed a lawsuit against the Catholic University of America also auction house Bonhams earlier this month after news of the dress auction made headlines.

The blue and white plaid dress with a white blouse attached – featured on the ruby ​​red dress worn by Dorothy Tornado in the iconic 1939 film – is thought to have been lost for nearly four decades before being rediscovered in the collection of the Catholic University Drama Department last year. Becomes.

The head of the department, Father Gilbert Hartke, received the dress as a gift in the 1970s. But just a year later, the suit was found on the Washington, DC campus. She was reported missing mysteriously.

Mrs. Gilbert died in 1986. It wasn't until May 2021, nearly four decades later, that the dress was found in a discarded shoe box. Bonhams plans to release the dress Tuesday as part of the sale of Bonhams Classic Hollywood: Film and TV in Los Angeles. They estimated the dress, one of only four original costumes in existence and one of only two that still includes a white blouse, to be worth $800,000 and $1.2 million.

According to the auction house, this particular dress is listed as the one Garland wore in the iconic scene in which Dorothy confronts the Wicked Witch of the West in her castle.

But Barbara Ann, Mrs. Gilbert, and his closest living relatives say he is the legal owner of the lawsuit. In her case, filed May 3 and accepted by PEOPLE, she says actress Mercedes McCambridge "explicitly and publicly" donated her uncle's clothes in 1973. There is no documentation to prove P. Gilbert "donated the dress once officially or unofficially to Catholic University. ."

"The dress has great and significant sentimental value to the plaintiffs, is unique, and is recognized worldwide as an iconic image from perhaps the most popular and watched the film in cinema history," the lawsuit reads. "Catholic University does not appear to be trying to find an heir because the gown was misplaced [and] there is no ownership interest in the gown."