Vettriano joins the greats as detectives hunt stolen painting

When burglars broke into the large house in a wealthy Surrey commuter village they were probably expecting another lucrative but run-of-the-mill haul.

When burglars broke into the large house in a wealthy Surrey commuter village they were probably expecting another lucrative but run-of-the-mill haul.

By the time they had finished loading electronic goods and jewellery into their victim's Volvo 4x4 and driven it away, the raiders had loot worth at least £60,000. But the thieves may not have been aware that they had doubled the value of their ill-gotten gains by also stealing a work by one of Britain's most popular artists from the detached home in Oxted, near Reigate, police said yesterday.

The 60cm x 80cm painting of two lovers in a passionate embrace was by Jack Vettriano, the self-taught painter whose posters outsell those of Monet, Van Gogh and Dali. Detectives investigating the raid, which happened two weeks ago, said they believed the Last Great Romantic, valued at between £60,000 and £80,000, had been stolen by criminals unaware of its value or significance.

It is understood that the two-week publicity blackout about the burglary, committed in daylight on 9 February, was imposed to try to seize the picture if it appeared on the market.

But a Surrey Police spokesman said: "There is no indication the house has been targeted by specialist thieves interested in the painting. Additional items were taken. It looks as if they are burglars who found something they hadn't expected."

Vettriano, whose starkly lit works have been described as a mixture of Edward Hopper and Art Deco railway posters, is probably Britain's most bankable artist. His annual income from royalty fees on greetings cards, posters, umbrellas, mugs, jigsaw puzzles and even biscuit tins bearing his works is at least £500,000.

Such is the ubiquity of Vettriano's work that the value of his original paintings have soared. One of his best-known works, The Singing Butler, sold for £744,800 at auction last year, netting a 2,300 per cent return for its owner just six years after buying it.

It is understood the stolen painting was bought from the Portland Gallery, the exclusive central London art dealership which acts as Vettriano's sole agent.

The gallery refused to discuss the history or value of the painting but it is believed to be the first time that a Vettriano has been stolen. Until now, the only appearance of a Vettriano in criminal circles has been in the pages of Ian Rankin, the Scottish writer, who used one of the paintings as a plot device in an Inspector Rebus novel.

Art experts said the thieves would find it almost impossible to sell their Vettriano. A specialist in the retrieval of stolen works said: "Given that you see cards and calendars with his stuff in every bookshop, these burglars almost certainly recognised it was a Vettriano as they were going through the house. But just as they recognised it, so would anyone else. If these guys aren't specialists, then they are going to find this painting very difficult to get rid of. It is not the sort of thing you offload down the pub."

The Fife-born artist, a mining engineer who did not start painting until he was given a set of paints by a girlfriend on his 21st birthday, is no stranger to controversy. Despite counting among his patrons the actor Jack Nicholson, the restaurateur and design guru Sir Terence Conran, the Scottish actor Robbie Coltrane and the theatre impresario Sir Tim Rice, none of Vettriano's works hang in a major British public gallery.

The artist put that down to "jealousy" among the art world elite at his self-taught provenance and popularity. Richard Calvocoressi, director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, once wrote: "We think Vettriano an indifferent painter and he is very low on our priorities. There are other 'popular' artists we do not collect - Beryl Cook, Rolf Harris."