A museum has raised almost £4.5m to save a rare Italian Renaissance painting.

The Ashmolean Museum, part of the University of Oxford, paid £4.48m for Fra Angelico’s Crucifixion painting from the 1420s.

The work had been in a private British collection for more than 200 years but was sold to an overseas buyer and was in danger of leaving the UK.

An export bar was granted for the piece in January, meaning it could not leave the country, giving Oxford University nine months to raise money to purchase it.

The director of the Ashmolean Museum, dr. Xa Sturgis, said it was a “really exciting time” for staff to acquire such an “important work” after securing the funds by the October 29 deadline.

He described the Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John the Evangelist and Magdalene as a “very beautiful” and “very moving” painting.

It is believed to be the oldest surviving painting by Fra Angelico.

Dr Sturgis said the crucifixion was a subject the artist “painted over and over again throughout his career”.

“With this picture, he sets the tone for how he approaches the subject, and so it’s an exciting picture because he’s a young artist at the beginning of his career,” he continued.

The free museum has another painting from the end of Fra Angelico’s career, meaning visitors can now see how his art developed throughout his life.

The piece will be used in the teaching of Oxford students in subjects including history and the history of art and theology and will be included in the collection of artwork presented to more than 40,000 schoolchildren each year.

“They are a collection that essentially belongs to the nation and the public,” said Dr. Sturgis.