A BID to keep artwork depicting a historic moment in a North-East town's history appears to have failed.

The painting portraying the opening of the South Dock, at Seaham, County Durham, in 1905, went under the hammer at London auctioneers Bonhams earlier this week.

With an estimated value of between £20,000 and £30,000, the scene, by artist John HF Bacon, was sold to a private bidder for £23,900 on Tuesday evening.

A Bonhams spokeswoman would not reveal the identity of the buyer or what they intend to do with the painting, which is believed to have hung in the boardroom at Seaham Harbour Dock Company for several decades.

Before the sale, calls were made to keep the painting on public display in County Durham, but they proved unsuccessful.

Seaham Town Council wrote to Durham County Council seeking support to buy the painting when it was discovered it was up for auction.

Town clerk Stan Cudlip said it was "an outstanding painting" which he had hoped could stay in the area.

He said: "The painting is extremely important for Seaham, and we would have loved to have seen it here. But we are only a small council and realistically we could have put forward a maximum of £500 towards it, so we wrote to the county council's museums and art department to see if they could help.

"We thought they may have been able to put together some sort of consortia bid.

"But there was only a short window of time from when we found out about the auction to put the funding together."

A county council spokesman said: "Unfortunately, the situation is that we don't, or didn't, have the resources to buy the picture ourselves.

"We had a number of discussions with potential partners seeking to put together a joint bid but we couldn't muster sufficient support.

"Despite our best efforts and discussions with a number of interested parties, we just couldn't gather enough backing."

The South Dock was built by the Londonderry family, owners of both Seaham's collieries and harbour, to handle the increased traffic from the port.

Arthur Balfour, the Conservative Prime Minister of the day, agreed to a request by the then Lord Londonderry to perform the opening, captured in Bacon's painting.