AFP - National galleries from Scotland and England have raised 50 million pounds to keep a painting by Italian Renaissance master Titian in public ownership, they said Monday.

The head of the National Galleries of Scotland had said at the launch of a fundraising campaign that losing "Diana And Actaeon" would be like the Louvre selling the Mona Lisa or Florence losing its Botticellis.

The current owner of the painting, the Duke of Sutherland, one of Scotland's wealthiest aristocrats, offered it for sale for a bargain 50 million pounds (55 million euros, 71 million dollars).

The campaign was launched amid fears within the British cultural establishment that the painting would be acquired by a private buyer.

But now it will be shared by the National Galleries of Scotland and the National Gallery in London after campaigners reached their cash target.

John Leighton, director general of the National Galleries of Scotland, helped bring the appeal to a close in front of the painting at its current home in Edinburgh.

"I can't tell you how thrilled we are that one of the finest works in that collection is now going to be in public ownership," he said.

"The single most astonishing, amazing, heart-warming aspect of this has been the response by private sources.

"From the public, whether it's a five-pound note pressed into the collection box, through to the nation's trusts and private individuals for many times that amount."

Donations from the public totalled 7.4 million pounds, while trusts and funds made up the rest.

The painting is part of the Bridgewater Collection, which includes four Titians, three by Raphael, a Rembrandt and eight Poussins, and has been on display in Scotland since 1945.