Cupid is resting a little easier than the Indianapolis Museum of Art, as a painting it lent to a troubled New York gallery remains trapped in legal limbo.

But Maxwell Anderson, director and CEO of the museum, is confident the painting by Italian old master Caravaggio -- depicting the sleeping god of love -- will be returned soon.

And it will be safe in the meantime.

"There's no reason to think anything could go wrong here," Anderson said. The IMA recently lent the 1608 painting "Sleeping Cupid" to the Salander-O'Reilly Galleries in New York for an exhibit called "Caravaggio's Rome," originally set to open this week.

With the gallery and its main dealer, Lawrence Salander, embroiled in more than a dozen lawsuits, many alleging fraud, New York State Supreme Court Justice Richard B. Lowe locked down the business and its inventory Friday.

Anderson said the IMA filed a motion in Lowe's court, asking for permission to take the Caravaggio, which isn't part of the gallery's regular inventory and is not for sale.

"It's not even from New York state," Anderson said of the painting. "It doesn't belong there."

Lowe is reviewing the IMA's motion but has given no timetable for when he might rule on it.

The painting, also lent to museums in Italy and Germany in 2006, was in the IMA's European galleries until late September, "as it shall be again very shortly," Anderson said.

The museum lends work to other institutions and borrows pieces, as well, on a regular basis, previously lending work to Salander-O'Reilly in 1996 and 1988. The IMA now has 70 pieces, 12 of them considered major works, on loan to institutions around the world.

"Cupid" is the only piece on loan to Salander-O'Reilly.

"We operate on an international barter system," Anderson said, adding that the museum hopes to temporarily place work where it "will be most beneficial in terms of public knowledge and scholarship."

While lending work is common, he said, this situation is "highly unusual."

The IMA was especially interested in seeing "Sleeping Cupid" included in a New York exhibit with other work by Caravaggio. Anderson said a minority of scholars attribute the painting to the Italian, so museum officials hoped this would allow for further study.

"We were excited to have an opportunity to present the painting to scholars who examine it alongside other works by the hand of the master."

The New York Times also covered this. Read that article here.