IT was the largest art show ever staged in Britain and it was held in Old Trafford, in a temporary glass pavilion the size of London's Crystal Palace, in 1857.

Manchester Art Gallery is offering people a once in a lifetime opportunity to see some of the pieces that graced the original exhibition at its 150th special anniversary show.

The original exhibition, called Art Treasures of the United Kingdom, featured more than 16,000 creations by some of the most celebrated artists the world has ever seen. Visitors to the MAG event, called Art Treasures in Manchester, can enjoy works by everyone from Michelangelo and Turner to Constable and Gainsborough.

Ruth Shrigley, the lead curator of ATIM, says the 1857 event ran for five months, attracted 1.3 million art lovers to the area and, in terms of its importance, she says it was the cultural equivalent of the Commonwealth Games.

Bearing this in mind, it didn't prove a problem persuading the Victorian equivalent of today's A-list celebrities to make the journey north. Art Treasures in the United Kingdom was officially opened by Prince Albert and the guest list included some of the most iconic figures in history, with Queen Victoria, Charles Dickens, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Florence Nightingale and the French Emperor Louis Napoleon making an appearance at the landmark event.

Ruth says Old Trafford was chosen as a location because the organisers felt the air was too polluted in Manchester city centre and there was a risk that the treasures on display could be damaged by it. It was also felt the venue, which stood close to where Lancashire County Cricket Ground stands today, could be easily reached by public transport.

Ruth thinks the star attraction of the anniversary show will undoubtedly be Michelangelo's Madonna and Child with Saint John and the Angels.

"It was considered to be by a lesser Renaissance artist but the research that was done for the 1857 exhibition proved that it was by Michelangelo and it is for that reason it became known as the Manchester Madonna," she says.

The original show was born out of the success of an event held in Dublin in 1853 and the organiser wanted to stage an exhibition that exclusively featured art. Manchester was chosen because of its high proportion of art lovers and also because of the city's excellent public transport links. The organisers, who included the then Mayor of Manchester, the industrialist James Watt, managed to obtain Royal support for their project and this allowed them to borrow pieces belonging to the country's aristocracy and other well heeled individuals. The exhibition ran from May to November, and cost in the region of £210,000 to put on.

Bearing in mind the show featured some of the most valuable pieces of art in the world, how did the Victorian authorities handle the issue of security?

"First of all it wasn't a free event, so they could control admission. But the organisers also negotiated with the Manchester police to have police on site 24 hours a day. They actually built a police barracks to house the policemen who were on duty. Actually, the crime rate was very low during the exhibition. The main problem they had was not theft or damage to the art works but with pickpockets," says Ruth, who adds that there were only 10 arrests during the entire 1857 exhibition, for offences ranging from theft to assault. Rick Bowen * Art Treasures in Manchester is at Manchester Art Gallery, Mosley Street, Manchester, until January 27. Admission is free.