One of the most famous sculptures of the 20th century is to remain in the UK after it was acquired by the National Galleries of Scotland.

Salvador Dalí's Lobster Telephone was bought for £853,000 which came from a private fund.

The sculpture had originally been sold at a Christie's auction to a foreign buyer but was regarded as too important to be allowed to leave the country.

Ministers placed an export bar on the item to allow a UK gallery enough time to raise the necessary funds.

On Monday, it was announced that the National Galleries of Scotland had done just that and the phone will go on display this week at Edinburgh's National Gallery of Modern Art.

Simon Groom, director of modern and contemporary art at the National Galleries of Scotland, said: "This major acquisition cements our position as one of the world's greatest collections of Surrealist art.

"Dalí created something incredibly rich, imaginative and funny with the most economical of means.

"Before this acquisition we had nothing of this kind."

Lobster Telephone, made in 1938, is one of 11 commissioned by Edward James, a wealthy patron of surrealist artists.

The lobsters were made to fit telephones at his house in central London and his country house in West Sussex.

Almost all of them are in museum collections around the world, including the Tate Modern and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

The funds for the National Galleries of Scotland acquisition came from the Art Fund, which provided £100,000, and the Henry and Sula Walton Fund, which gave £753,000.

Henry Walton was a professor of psychiatry at Edinburgh University and his wife Sula was a renowned child psychiatrist.

They left their art collection to the National Galleries of Scotland and set up the fund to help the galleries acquire major works.

Stephen Deuchar, director of the Art Fund, said: "Dalí's Lobster Telephone is amongst the most famous of all Surrealist objects, typifying the spirit of the movement in its witty, subversive eccentricity.

"Art Fund is proud to help the National Galleries of Scotland add this important work of art to their internationally renowned Surrealism collection."