Tate captures £5.7m Rubens sketch on deadline day

Banqueting House 'treasure' will stay in UK
Focus switches to £100m campaign to keep Titians
The Apotheosis of James I
The Apotheosis of James I (sketch for the Whitehall ceiling). Photograph: The Trustees of the Glynde Endowment/PA

A Rubens sketch for the Banqueting House ceiling in Whitehall, described as a "unique treasure in the history of British art", is to remain in the UK after the Tate raised £5.7m by the final day of the deadline to buy it.

The Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens produced The Apotheosis of James I (Sketch for the Whitehall Ceiling) around 1629 and there was a risk of it being sold abroad by its owner, Viscount Hampden.

He imposed a deadline of September 30 for money to be raised by the Tate, which launched its public appeal in June.

On the last day the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the charity The Art Fund and Tate Members all increased their original pledges to make up a shortfall. The owner also reduced the asking price by £300,000 to £5.7m after tax - about half its estimated value of £11.5m.

There was jubilation at the Tate. Stephen Deuchar, director of Tate Britain, said he was "simply thrilled" to have acquired "a unique treasure in the history of British art" but admitted there was a point where he feared they were not going to make it. "Everyone came together in the course of just two weeks, it was rather dramatic. There was a feeling that if it was going to happen then it had to happen now. We didn't consider extending the deadline."

Deuchar is hoping the Tate success will be repeated in the much more mountainous campaign by the National Gallery and National Gallery of Scotland to raise £100m for two Titians owned by the Duke of Sutherland. Funding bodies are due to take decisions in the next two months.

Deuchar said future fundraising was not going to be easy, given the economic circumstances, but added: "The most important causes, the works that are truly of national significance, will still get the support they deserve."

The historian David Starkey helped launch the appeal at the Banqueting House in June, saying that it would be "unthinkable" for the sketch to leave Britain. He said yesterday: "The loss of the sketch would have been a fundamental betrayal of our national heritage."

The Banqueting House - designed by Inigo Jones - and its Rubens ceiling is all that remains of the original Whitehall Palace after it was destroyed by fire in 1698. James I of England (James VI of Scotland) commissioned the Rubens ceiling to celebrate the union of monarchies of England and Scotland as well as his accession to the throne after the death of Elizabeth I.

The biggest donor was the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the nation's fund of last resort. It agreed £2m in July and a further £221,000 on September 30. Its chief executive, Carole Souter, said: "We really had to pull out all the stops. There is huge demand for our money but we felt strongly that this particular work had to be saved as it is so closely associated with the Banqueting House."

It is a measure of the work's importance that The Art Fund gave its largest ever gift for a single work of art, £600,000. Its director, David Barrie, said: "I'm delighted we were able to play such a central part in this momentous successful campaign."

It was also the biggest contribution made by Tate Members towards an acquisition, £1.5m, which included £45,000 from individual members responding to the public appeal. Tate trustees allowed £1m of Tate funds to be used.