UK and US galleries buy masterpiece Portrait Of Mai for €56m

Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Portrait Of Mai caused a sensation when it was first exhibited in 1776 (PA)

One of the earliest portraits of a black person by a British artist will remain on public display after London’s National Portrait Gallery and the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles struck a £50 million (€56.5m) deal to buy it.

The two institutions announced on Wednesday that they had each pitched in £25 million (€28m) to acquire Joshua Reynolds’ depiction of an 18th century Polynesian man titled Portrait Of Mai.