AN oil painting has been saved for the nation after a major effort led by one of the region's smallest museums.

The Captain Cook Memorial Museum, at Whitby, North Yorkshire, joined forces with the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museums and Galleries of Wales to raise almost £1m.

And next year the painting, Portrait of Omai, Joseph Banks and Dr Daniel Solander, by the Welsh artist William Parry, will go on display at the museum, in Grape Lane.

Thanks to a private benefactor and local trusts, the Captain Cook museum was able to raise half the sum.

London and Cardiff worked together to secure the other half. The National Art Collections Fund also supported the campaign, with a grant of £155,000.

The painting will be on display at Whitby for a number of years and will then be shared by London and Cardiff before returning to Grape Lane.

It shows the "noble savage" Omai, a young Polynesian islander who sailed to Britain in one of the ships returning from Cook's second voyage.

He met King George III and toured Yorkshire, where he went to York races, bathed in the sea at Scarborough, and travelled to Mulgrave Castle, near Whitby.

Sir Joseph and Swedish botanist Dr Solander were two of 18th Century Britain's leading scientists.

They were life-long collaborators and had travelled together on Captain Cook's voyage to the South Pacific in 1768. Omai was put into their care after his arrival in Britain in 1774.

William Parry (l745-l791) was a pupil and life-long associate of Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose own Portrait of Omai was sold by Castle Howard last year for £10.3m.

The chairman of the museum's trustees, Sophie Forgan, said: "We are delighted to be partners in what has been a tremendous collaborative effort to acquire this painting, and look forward to showing Omai and Banks in Whitby, the town they once visited on their travels in Yorkshire."