BEIJING, July 24 (Xinhuanet) -- Brad Pitt on Thursday said he will seek legal action against anyone publishing recent photos taken by paparazzi of the actor and his newly enlarged family at their French estate, according to his lawyers.

Angelina Jolie (right) and Brad Pitt are seen here as they leave the Festival Palace during the 61st Cannes International Film Festival, on May 20, in southern France.(Xinhua/AFP Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    Photographs of Pitt and his family in France were "surreptitiously" snapped using a powerful telephoto lens and sold to an unidentified buyer, the Los Angeles lawyers said in a letter published by the U.S. website The Smoking Gun (http://www.thesmokinggun.com).

    The lawyers did not say which family members were in the pictures.

    Pitt and actress Angelina Jolie, the mother of his children, have reportedly sold exclusive picture rights to the first photographs of their newborn twins to a U.S. publication for 11 million U.S. dollars. The money would go to charity.

US actress Angelina Jolie is seen here at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2008. Jolie has given birth to healthy twins, a boy and a girl, at a maternity clinic on the French Riviera, the hospital said.(Xinhua/AFP Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    The legal warning came a week after Jolie left the hospital in Nice with twins Vivienne Marcheline and Knox Leon, who were born on July 12. The family has rented a villa in nearby Provence.

    Pitt's lawyer, Yael Holtkamp, said the taking of the photos was a "malicious violation" of the actor's privacy rights under both French and California law.

    Holtkamp said one unspecified photo agency that had already sold the pictures had agreed to stop further sales and removed them from its website.

    Several celebrity websites that had links to the pictures had removed them by late on Thursday.

    (Agencies)