CITY councillors have given the go-ahead to spend £1m on an Italian masterpiece.
If secured, the as-yet unidentified painting would be the most expensive acquisition at the city's Ferens Art Gallery.
The ambitious move aims to honour a wish of the council-run gallery's late curator John Bradshaw for the Ferens to buy an internationally-recognised artwork to become the star attraction in its permanent collection.
It would also bolster Hull's current bid to be the UK City of Culture in 2017.
However, taxpayers will not have to foot the bill.
Instead, the Renaissance work of art will be largely paid for from an historic fund set up more than 80 years ago to help purchase such acquisitions for the gallery.
Details of the painting or its artist behind it have yet to be released by Hull City Council.
But the Mail understands it is the work of an artist from the famous Siena School of painters from Tuscany, who flourished in the late 15th and early 16th century.
The proposed purchase is expected to take the form of a formal bid for the painting in June.
Last week, the council's corporate trustee committee met behind closed doors to sanction a contribution of just over £1m from the Ferens Endowment Fund to support the potential purchase.
Minutes from the meeting describe it as a "significant piece of artwork".
They state: "The acquisition would enhance service delivery, particularly in relation to the key areas of public access through interpretation, display, education and research."
The fund was launched in 1928 with money held in a trust set up nine years earlier by industrialist Thomas Ferens to pay for the building of the gallery in Queen Victoria Square.
According to its last annual accounts for the year ended March 2012, the endowment fund stood at £5.9m.
The council acts as the sole trustee overseeing the fund which has an investment portfolio managed by HSBC.
If the bid is successful, some of the eventual cost could be offset with potential private sponsorship and grants worth around £200,000.
There would also be a proposed collaboration with the National Gallery in London where conservation work would be carried out before the painting comes to Hull.
The committee report says the cost of this work would be met by the National Gallery, which has a number of Siena School paintings in its collection.
The London gallery also staged a major international exhibition of Siena School art in 2007.
A recent series of high-profile touring exhibitions at the Ferens featuring artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Andy Warhol and David Hockney has boosted its reputation as a venue for touring shows.
The gallery's permanent collection includes European Old Masters, portraiture, marine paintings, and modern and contemporary British art.
