The extinction curve of the lensing galaxy of B1152+199 at z=0.44

We present UBVRIz' photometry of the gravitational lens candidate CLASS B1152+119 obtained with the Nordic Optical Telescope. The two QSO components are resolved in the B, V, R, I and z' bands confirming the lensing nature of the system. The z=0.44 lens galaxy is clearly detected in B, R, I and z' and its position is found to be almost coincident with the faint QSO image which is heavily extincted (relative to the brighter QSO image) by dust in the lens galaxy. The extinction curve of the lens galaxy derived from the relative photometry is well fitted by a Galactic extinction law with 1.3 < R_V < 2.0 and E(B-V) ~ 1. From a simple model of the system we predict a time delay of ~ 60 days.