THE Northern Echo and North-East art lovers today join forces in a bid to prevent a treasured collection of paintings worth millions of pounds from being lost to the region for good.

The threatened pictures - 13 full-length portraits of Jacob and his Twelve Sons by 17th Century Spanish artist Francisco de Zurburan - have graced the home of generations of Bishops of Durham for the past 250 years.

But the unique display could be split up or sold abroad if the Church Commissioners vote later this month to put the paintings on the market to subsidise cash-strapped parishes and dioceses around the country.

This week, the country's top arts institutions, including the National Gallery in London and Northern Arts in Newcastle, have backed a growing crusade, started by Bishop Auckland Civic Society, to keep the collection at Auckland Castle.

Local MP Derek Foster has enlisted support from prominent British Jews because of the collection's historic connection with Judaism.

Mr Foster has also complained to two church commissioners, Lady Brentford and Middlesbrough MP Stuart Bell, and is contacting culture secretary Tessa Jowell.

If the paintings are sold, one possible way of keeping them in the region is for Bowes Museum, in Barnard Castle, to buy them.

Museum director Adrian Jenkins has been sounding out potential funding bodies.

National Gallery director Neil McGregor views the paintings as a "great national treasure".

And Northern Arts chief executive Andrew Dixon said: "It would be a disaster to lose something of this stature from the region."