A £1.5m marble sculpture, sold overseas by a private owner in Scotland, has been temporarily barred from leaving the country by the UK's Culture Minister.
Margaret Hodge yesterday placed a temporary export bar on The Virgin Annunciate by Domenico Guidi, an 18th- century work on show to the public at the National Galleries of Scotland since 1991.
However, earlier this year it was sold in a private sale to a foreign collector and now, with the export bar in place, public bodies have until next March to raise £1.5m to keep the work in Scotland.
The work, loaned to the galleries from the estate of the late Lord Kinnaird, was part of the 1998 Effigies and Ecstasies exhibition at Edinburgh's National Gallery of Scotland.
However, it is understood the galleries will not make a bid to keep the bust, which shows the Virgin receiving the news of the incarnation from the angel Gabriel, in Scotland.
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