A SKETCHBOOK by fashionable 18th century portrait painter George Romney is too precious to leave the mayor's parlour at Kendal Town Hall, say councillors.

Romney died at Kendal in 1802 and, to mark his bicentenary, enthusiasts are planning a "once-in-a-lifetime" exhibition of his best works, which will go on tour to Liverpool, London and California, reports Rachel Garnett.

Kendal Town Council is happy to loan the painting King Lear in the Storm, which is displayed at Abbot Hall Art Gallery, and described as "the masterpiece of Romney's first, Kendal period and without which no exhibition about the artist would be complete."

However, the request to loan Romney's sketchbook - housed in the mayor's parlour - has been rejected.

Alex Kidson, curator of British art at Liverpool's Walker Galley - who is researching the Romney exhibition - has visited Kendal to examine the sketchbook, which sheds light on the artist's first years in London in the mid-1760s.

In a letter to Kendal Town Council, he described it as "a key object in any appreciation of Romney's career," and said it would be "truly unthinkable" that "such a significant item should be missing."

"I could not not contemplate showing photographs: every work in the exhibition is a major, carefully chosen original designed to represent Romney at his finest," wrote Mr Kidson.

He said one of the UK's leading fine art shippers would transport the sketchbook, and it would be exhibited in a permanently-locked display case, with 24-hour security and low light levels.

Mr Kidson said more than 80 institutions and private collectors all over the world had been asked to loan works, and only one had refused so far.

Kendal's town treasurer Phil Hull said the sketchbook would be "totally irreplaceable" if it went missing.

Clerk Hugh McClorry said Romney fans would want to "pore over" the drawings like detectives, searching for clues to Romney's paintings.

It was questioned how that would be possible, without taking the book apart.

Coun Paul Braithwaite said the sketchbook was "an art book to be looked at," and not kept on a shelf.

However, most councillors were worried about the possibility of it being handled and photographed repeatedly.

They agreed to write back to the Walker Galley, suggesting high-quality photographic facsimiles of the drawings be obtained and displayed, rather than the original.

l Abbot Hall Art Gallery is to loan Romney's work The Leveson-Gower Children to the exhibition, which takes place at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, from February 7-April 28, 2002; the National Portrait Gallery, London, from May 30-August 18; and the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California, from September 15-December 1.