The cathedral will light up on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings

The Fighting Temeraire won a poll run by BBC Radio 4's Today programme this week to find the UK's best painting.

It is among 16 Turner works to be displayed on the cathedral during the show on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The painting was chosen for the shows months ago, and it was only by coincidence it won the poll this week.

'Very popular'

In the vote, The Fighting Temeraire, completed in 1839, beat off the challenge of works by the likes of Constable, Manet and Van Gogh.

Any painting on show in the UK was eligible, regardless of the artist's country of origin - the Fighting Temeraire can be seen at the National Gallery.

The Fighting Temeraire was voted Britain's greatest painting this week

The show in Canterbury will last for about 15 minutes and will be repeated several times from dusk on each of the three evenings.

It is part of a project which sees four cities, two in Kent and two in France, staging free light and music shows over the weekend - the others are in Rochester, Amiens and Rouen.

Councillor Harry Gregg, leader of Canterbury City Council, said: "It's a happy coincidence that the results of the vote should be revealed just before Son et Lumiere launches, but we're obviously very pleased to be offering an alternative view of such a famous and popular painting.

"This event was always going to be great, and we were expecting it to be very popular, but this news gives it even more of a boost."