A PAINTING saved for the nation after an appeal to raise more than £7.8m is to go on show in County Durham.

Edouard Manet's Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus was made subject to a temporary export bar after being sold to a foreign buyer for £28.35m two years ago.

Following the appeal, the painting was acquired by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, under the terms of a private treaty sale which made it available to a British institution for 27 per cent of its market value.

The portrait is to go on show at The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, in April on the first leg of a UK tour which will see it return to the Ashmolean in 2014.

Howard Coutts, curator at The Bowes Museum, said: “This is a rare chance to see the work of the great impressionist painter Édouard Manet in the north of England.

“Our founder, Joséphine Bowes, was interested in Manet, and lived quite close to him, and I’m sure she would have been pleased to see his work hanging in museum.”

The campaign to keep the painting in the UK received £5.9m from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and a grant of £850,000 from the Art Fund.

The final £1,080,000 was contributed via grants and donations from other trusts, foundations and private individuals.

During its visit to The Bowes Museum, Colin Harrison, senior curator of European Art at the Ashmolean Museum, will give a lecture on Édouard Manet at 2.15pm on May 2.

The painting will be on view from April 26 to June 2.