Art charity displays a century of treasures saved for the nation

Shipwrecked jewels, Egyptian artefacts and masterpieces by Michelangelo and Picasso that were all saved for the nation by a charity are to go on display next year in one of the most eclectic exhibitions Britain has staged.

The show at the Hayward Gallery in London will mark the centenary of the National Arts Collection Fund (the Art Fund), which was founded in 1903 by art lovers alarmed at the loss of precious works overseas.

Since then, almost 500,000 treasures at risk of sale to private or foreign owners have been bought for public museums and galleries.

The exhibition will include a study by Michelangelo for the figure of Adam in the Sistine Chapel, bought for £600 in the 1920s for the British Museum, and Velazquez's Rokeby Venus, bought for the National Gallery in 1906 for £45,000 and now worth at least £20m. There will also be armour from the Royal Armouries in Leeds, jewels from a Spanish Armada shipwreck and the final letter of Mary, Queen of Scots, in which she appeals to the King of France to look after her son.

Many regional museums and galleries will give up the stars of their collections for the exhibition from 23 October next year to 18 January 2004. They include an 8th-century sculpture made in the Isle of Man and currently exhibited there, thought to be the first British sculpture of the crucifixion. Also on show will be Rodin's sculpture of The Burghers of Calais, which will be removed from Victoria Tower Gardens in London, renovated for the exhibition and then returned.

David Barrie, the Art Fund's director, said the exhibition was so diverse "there's no one on the surface of the planet who knows about more than 25 per cent of the material". As well as celebrating the fund's achievements, Mr Barrie hopes the exhibition will raise awareness of the charity's work and boost the 90,000-strong membership whose subscriptions fund its work. "I want to get to the point where people think of us as an absolutely essential organisation like the National Trust," he said.

But the exhibition also has the potential to embarrass the Government by highlighting the funding crisis that has left the British Museum with only £100,000 for new purchases. Last year, the Art Fund spent £5.8m on helping to save art. It receives nothing from the Government or the Lottery.

Although British galleries have rarely had enough money to buy outright the most important works of art, many regard the current position as desperate. The National Gallery, for instance, risks losing a 16th-century work by Raphael, Madonna of the Pinks, which has been on loan for the past 10 years. The owners have sold it to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles for £29m, a figure the gallery is trying to match.

Mr Barrie said: "We think it's a scandal that the Government doesn't provide adequate funding to allow the national galleries to do their job properly."