Peter Paul Rubens is a well known baroque style painter from the late 1500’s. One of his projects was a series of nine large panelsfor the ceiling of the Banqueting House at the Palace of Whitehall, most of which was destroyed in a fire in 1698.

Rubens did many sketches before he created the panels, one of which, valued on the open market at just over 11 million pounds, is set to go up on sale after existing in a private collection for over 200 years.

The Tate Britain museum has an agreement with the potential vendor of the sketch to keep it off the market until the end of July. They are looking for donations to aquire the piece for their own collection stating that “It is absolutely unthinkable that this leaves the country”.

According to Reuters, “there [are] plans, if the appeal succeeded, to unite the work with about a dozen other known preparatory sketches for the ceiling in a special exhibition.”

The Tate has secured 1.56 million pounds so far, and donations can be made by visiting artfund.org or tate.org.uk.