A gallery accused of censorship after removing a pre-Raphaelite masterpiece for supposedly being offensive to women has made a humiliating U-turn.

After a furious backlash against Manchester Art Gallery for taking down John William Waterhouse’s Hylas and the Nymphs, the painting returned to pride of place over the weekend.

The painting shows Argonaut warrior Hylas being lured to a watery death by naked beckoning nymphs while filling a pitcher of water during the search for the Golden Fleece.

After a furious backlash against Manchester Art Gallery for taking down John William Waterhouse’s Hylas and the Nymphs, the painting returned to pride of place over the weekend

A curator had claimed that the 1896 artwork perpetuated ‘outdated and damaging stories’ that ‘women are either femmes fatale or passive bodies for male consumption’.

As part of a ‘takeover’ by contemporary artist Sonia Boyce, visitors found in its usual place a message that it has been removed ‘to prompt conversations about how we display and interpret artworks’.

Images of the painting were even removed from the gallery’s shop.

One art-lover dubbed the move ‘feminism gone mad’ while others claimed it marked the moment the ‘Snowflake generation’ began rewriting Britain’s cultural history.

In response to the backlash, Manchester City Council, which runs the gallery, announced that the painting would return.

Gallery interim director Amanda Wallace said: ‘We were hoping the experiment would stimulate discussion, and it's fair to say we've had that in spades - and not just from local people but from art-lovers around the world.

‘Throughout the painting's seven day absence, it's been clear that many people feel very strongly about the issues raised, and we now plan to harness this strength of feeling for some further debate on these wider issues.’

Among critics of the gallery was Professor Liz Prettejohn ((CRCT)), who curated a Waterhouse exhibition at the Royal Academy in 2009.

She told BBC News: ‘Taking it off display is killing any kind of debate that you might be able to have about it in relation to some of the really interesting issues that it might raise about sexuality and gender relationships.

‘The Victorians are always getting criticised because they're supposed to be prudish. But here it would seem it's us who are taking the roles of what we think of as the very moralistic Victorians.’

Last year New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art refused to bow to complaints that it should remove a 1938 painting by the artist Balthus showing a young girl sitting on a chair with her knee up, exposing her underwear.

A spokesman said visual art provided an opportunity for conversation 'through informed discussion and respect for creative expression'.