A European court on Thursday upheld Italy’s right to seize a prized Greek statue from the J. Paul Getty Museum in California, ruling that Italy was justified in trying to reclaim an important part of its cultural heritage and rejecting the museum’s appeal.

The European Court of Human Rights, or ECHR, determined that Italy’s decades-long efforts to recover the “Victorious Youth” statue from the Malibu-based Getty were right. “Victorious Youth,” a life-sized bronze dating from 300 B.C. to 100 B.C., is one of the highlights of the Getty collection. Though the artist is unknown, some scholars believe it was made by Lysippos, Alexander the Great’s personal sculptor.