Turners unite to save masterpiece

The Blue Rigi depicts the mountain as seen from Lake Lucerne

Three watercolours by Turner will be brought together next year as part of a campaign to save one for the nation.

It will be the first time the Blue Rigi, Red Rigi and Dark Rigi paintings have been exhibited together.

The Blue Rigi was sold at auction in June to an anonymous bidder for £5.8m - a record for a British watercolour.

It is currently barred from leaving the country under an temporary export ban imposed to give the Tate time to raise the £4.95m it needs to buy it back.

The gallery - which is pledging £2m of its own funds towards the campaign - has until 20 March to raise the necessary sum.

Defining colour

"Opportunities to acquire truly fine, finished examples from the late groups of Turner's Swiss watercolours are nowadays exceptionally rare," said Tate Britain's director, Stephen Deuchar.

"This is a chance we dare not miss."

Attempts to buy The Dark Rigi earlier this year were unsuccessful

The Tate already owns JMW Turner's preparatory sketches for his Rigi series, regarded as some of the painter's finest works.

But attempts to secure The Dark Rigi failed this year when it was sold to the National Gallery of Art in Washington for £2.7m.

The Red Rigi is being loaned to the Tate by the National Gallery of Melbourne.

Each work, painted in the early 1840s, shows the Swiss mountain at a different time of day and is characterised by a defining colour or tone.

The exhibition runs at Tate Britain from 22 January to 25 March 2007.