ARTS minister Tessa Blackstone has temporarily banned export of a £1.2 million painting of an important Bolton figure from the industrial revolution in a bid to stop it being sold abroad.

The portrait of cotton tycoon Richard Arkwright junior with his wife Mary and daughter Anne, painted by Joseph Wright of Derby in 1790, is priced at £1,217,500, which a UK buyer would have to find to save the picture for this country.

Richard Arkwright, son of spinning-frame creator Sir Richard Arkwright, was born in Bolton in 1755 and went on to inherit his father's cotton spinning empire before selling many of the mills and going into banking.

At one stage, he was said to be the wealthiest untitled man in the country.

The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art recommended that export of his painting be deferred because of the Arkwright family's connections to the development of industrial power in the Derwent Valley in Derbyshire.

It is understood that the painting had been sold by its owner to a buyer in America and potential UK buyers have until April 18 to try and raise the funds to acquire it.

The 8ft oil painting was the most ambitious of four pictures produced by Joseph Wright for Sir Richard Arkwright senior in the 1780s and 1790s.

The portrait originally hung with the other three in a collection at Willersley Castle, Derbyshire, the Arkwright home.

When the estate was sold in 1993, it was loaned to Derby Museum and Art Gallery. It was sold at Sotheby's in November 2001.