200 historians in the frame after art heist

• Hallkeeper Douglas Weddell has been left with a gap on the wall at the Signet Library following what is believed to be a daring theft. Picture: Dan Phillips

The watercolour was reported missing from a prestigious Edinburgh library a few days into the New Year.

Police are focusing their investigations on an event on New Year's Day when 200 people gathered at the Signet Library for a lecture on the Reformation.

The painting, a watercolour by the late Borders artist Tom Scott worth up to 4,000, was hanging in the basement on a corridor leading to the toilets.

It was in place when the library closed on Hogmanay and gone when the building, on Parliament Square, reopened the following week.

There were no signs of a break-in and the library had been open to the public just once for the ticketed event.

A New Year's Day Conversation saw 200 amateur historians gather to hear former Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway and author Harry Reid talk about John Knox and the Reformation.

Guests at the lecture had gathered in the Upper Library for a discussion of the impact of 16th century Protestant Reformation on the modern Scottish psyche.

Robert Pirrie, chief executive of the Signet Library, said: "We're left to conclude that the painting was stolen between 3 and 5:30pm on New Year's Day.

"To walk out with a painting like this would be quite a difficult and brazen act.

"It is very, very disappointing that someone appears to have taken advantage of our hospitality. I would like to think somebody walking around with a small painting in a gilt frame might have attracted some attention."

Mr Pirrie offered the thief an amnesty to return the painting, a landscape entitled I Cannae Hear Ye, which measured two feet by one and a half.

"I don't know about the police, but if whoever took it would were to quietly return it, I don't think there would be a problem," he said.

Mr Pirrie said he was surprised a theft had happened at such a highbrow event.

He said: "The profile of those attending would be members of the public interested in Scottish cultural and religious history.

"I would expect them to be a fairly civilised and restrained group of people."

There was only one entrance open that afternoon, he added, which was supervised by four members of staff from the library and organisers Unique Events. Mr Pirrie said the theft meant security procedures would be reviewed.

A spokesman for Lothian and Borders Police confirmed enquiries would be made among guests at the event.

"This has been an opportunistic theft of a relatively expensive piece of artwork, and we are eager to ensure it is returned to the library," he said.

A Unique Events spokesman said the firm would assist police with their enquiries.

The spokesman said: "Unique Events were contacted on the afternoon of Wednesday, 13 January by the Signet Library to inform us that a painting had gone missing from an area of the building over the Hogmanay period between 31 December and 5 January.

"Lothian and Borders Police are now holding enquiries to ascertain exactly when the painting went missing over the holidays and to ensure its immediate return.

"We are yet to be contacted by the police but will do everything we can to assist them with their enquiries."

ROGUES GALLERY

ONE of the most high profile art thefts was of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, stolen by a man who slipped away with the painting under his jacket in 1911. The thief was uncovered as an Italian employee of the Louvre in Paris, who claimed the artwork should be returned to his country.

Another da Vinci, Madonna of the Yarnwinder, was stolen from Drumlanrig Castle, Dumfriesshire, in 2003.

The 30 million artwork, allegedly stolen to order by a gang of Glasgow-based thieves, was recovered in 2007.

Paul Cezanne's oil painting Auvers-sur-Oise was snatched from Oxford's Ashmolean Museum on New Year's Eve in 2000. A gang of thieves is believed to have smashed through the roof under cover of Millennium fireworks to gain access to the 3m landscape.

It is thought Henry Moore's 3m two-tonne bronze Reclining Figure, stolen from an English estate in December 2005, was cut up for scrap.