大象传媒

There's a sense of d茅j脿 vu about arriving in the National Galleries of Scotland this week.

The colour on the walls has changed a few times, the director general has moved on, but the paintings which dominate the ground floor gallery are the same, and so are the ownership issues.

Back in 2003 we were there for the successful handover of the Venus Rising, the glamorous Titian painting which the National Galleries of Scotland had bought for 拢11.6m.

It seemed to bring to an end, speculation about the fate of the collection following the death of the sixth Duke of Sutherland three years previously.

In the face of massive death duties, the new duke faced breaking up the collection for sale but in the end, thanks to the acquisition and some negotiation with HM Revenue and Customs, the collection stayed intact - all four Titians, three Raphaels, one Rembrandt and a room full of Poussin.

But the Bridgewater Collection - which has been in the Edinburgh gallery on the Mound since 1945 - is now worth a staggering 拢1bn and this year, the duke has decided to review his assets.

He could, of course sell off a lesser painting - and one which might cause far less concern to the UK government's strict export rules.

But he deliberately chose the Titians - Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto - as high profile paintings which will raise interest, and the necessary capital.

They are apparently worth three times their 拢50m asking price - although it's hard to imagine them ever coming on the open market (indeed the suggestion is that if the campaign is unsuccessful, the duke won't sell the Titians at all, but consider another sale.)

But for John Leighton, general director of the National Galleries of Scotland, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity.

"I don't know if we can raise the money. We only have four months to do so but we will give it our best shot. The important thing is to make sure these works stay in the public domain - and if we have a chance to keep them then we will do what we can."

Already the Scottish Government has signalled its interest in contributing - although it hasn't yet decided how much.

And the whole campaign is being run jointly with the National Gallery in London, which if successful will share ownership of the paintings with the National Galleries of Scotland, with the works rotating between Edinburgh and London every seven years. (there is already a precedent in the Canova sculpture The Three Graces - which was bought in 1994 for 拢7.6m by both the V&A and NGS. It's currently in Edinburgh.)

And visitors today were keen to give their backing - among them, the artist Tracey Emin, whose retrospective is currently showing at the National Gallery of Modern Art.

"I read about it in the papers, which is sad that it should be such a big story,"she says.

"If every single person in the UK gave two pounds - the price of a packet of biscuits - they could buy this painting. It's not much and everyone can enjoy it."

Coming so soon after the massive campaign to buy the massive modern art collection built up by Antony D'Offay - 拢26.7m, and the Link Project (拢34.3m in 2004) - and in the midst of a recession, it's hard to tell whether the British public will have the appetite for such a scheme.