Masterpiece unveiled after facelift

Hundreds of years of grime were removed

A £10m Renaissance masterpiece rescued last year by the National Galleries of Scotland has gone on show in Glasgow after a six-month clean-up operation.

The 500-year-old Madonna and Child painting by Italian artist Sandro Botticelli has been painstakingly restored by conservation experts.

The painting was bought by the national galleries in November after it was put up for sale by the Earl of Wemyss and March.

There had been fears it would end up in an American gallery before a £10m rescue package was put together to keep it in Scotland.

Two admirers study the painting

The painting was originally unveiled to the public when it was bought last year.

Since then, it has been back in the vaults to the years of dirt, grime and varnish removed.

The conservator in charge also decided to remove the painting's delicate, but damaged, lining.

Michael Gallagher said: "I took a long time deciding whether to go ahead with that, and that was perhaps the most complicated part of the procedure.

"The attention that a picture like this receives makes you very conscious of the decisions you take."

Experts agreed his decision had paid off, with previously unseen detail revealed.

Timothy Clifford: "People will swoon"

National Galleries of Scotland director, Timothy Clifford, said: "The whole thing is a transformation, I think.

"The people who may have seen it already in Edinburgh and swooned, will doubly swoon to see it in Glasgow looking quite like this."

After two months in the Kelvingrove Gallery in Glasgow, it will be moved back to Edinburgh where plans will be made for other dates, possibly in Liverpool and London.

The painting, dated between 1480-85, is Scotland's only signed work by Botticelli, who is best known for his work, The Birth of Venus.

The four-foot canvas was last seen in public in 1957, after being acquired by the family of the Earl of Wemyss and March in the 19th Century.

Considered to be the most important painting of its period in a private collection when it was put up for sale, it had hung at the earl's family home, Gosford House, in East Lothian.