ONE of the region's museum's has spent £25,000 acquiring a work of art.

The Bowes Museum, in Barnard Castle, County Durham, has bought a portrait of a lady painted by Paul Helleu, on a ceramic plaque by Theodore Deck.

The plaque, dating from about 1885, was purchased through a £12,500 grant from the National Art Collections Fund with additional funding from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council/Victoria and Albert Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of the Bowes Museum.

It shows a lady outdoors and is painted in the Japanese style. It is likely it would have featured in the museum's collections already if it had not been for the death of founder Josephine Bowes in 1874, the year of the first exhibition by the Impressionists.

Both Josephine and her husband, John, lived at the heart of the Impressionist movement in France.

Dr Howard Coutts, keeper of ceramics at The Bowes Museum, said: "This plaque represents a fascinating link between the collections of paintings and ceramics at The Bowes Museum."

Published: 02/12/2005