National Gallery spend £45 million restoring painting

The gallery has used up all of the gallery's reserves and plenty of private donations to restore the painting. Credit: ITV News

Titian's masterpiece Diana and Callisto has been saved for the nation in a £45 million deal.

The oil painting, one of a series of six created for King Philip II of Spain in the 16th century, was bought after a fundraising campaign which saw the National Gallery in London pledge £25 million towards the cost of keeping it in the country.

It will remain on show with another of Titian's works, its companion piece Diana and Actaeon, and be shared between the gallery and the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh.

National Gallery director Nicholas Penny said: "For more than a hundred years these two great paintings by Titian have been regarded as pre-eminent among the masterpieces in private hands in the UK.