D-Day for £11.5m Raphael

The Heritage Lottery Fund will decide today whether to award a grant of £11.5 million to keep a masterpiece by Raphael in Britain.

Without the grant the A4-sized Madonna and Child, owned by the Duke of Northumberland but at present on loan to the National Gallery, will go to the J Paul Getty Museum in California.

The Duke has agreed to sell the painting for a reported £35 million. He insisted in a statement today that Britain would benefit even if the painting left the country. "The proceeds will help British heritage and rural regeneration projects," he said.