Vettriano paintings fetch £2.5m

The painting Mad dogs was one of Vettriano's early works

An auction of 40 paintings by Scottish artist Jack Vettriano fetched more than £2.5m during fierce bidding at Gleneagles hotel in Perthshire.

The highest price was paid for one of his early works, Mad Dogs, which went for £330,400 at Sotheby's annual Scottish sale.

It was painted in 1991, around the same time as The Singing Butler.

That painting set a record for a Scottish artist when it sold for almost £750,000 earlier this year.

'Strong competition'

Vettriano's later works In Thoughts of You and Shades of Scarlet both sold for more than £200,000.

Scores of art enthusiasts from home and abroad flocked to the sale.

Other highlights saw a rediscovered Joseph Farquharson painting - On a Clear Evening When the November Sky Grew Red - snapped up for £285,600.

A painting by Scottish Colourist Francis CB Cadell also sold for £285,600.

This was a record sale for Sotheby's in Scotland, achieving a grand total of £5.44m Andre Zlattinger Sotheby's

The work, which depicts the church of Santa Maria della Visitazione, was painted in 1910.

Andre Zlattinger, head of Sotheby's Scottish pictures department in London, said there had been a "huge amount" of interest in the works, with "strong competition" for important Vettriano works.

He said: "This was a record sale for Sotheby's in Scotland, achieving a grand total of £5.44m.

"The strength of the Scottish market was demonstrated by a number of world auction records set today."

Artistic skills

Born in 1951, Vettriano taught himself to paint in a Fife bedsit after his girlfriend bought him a set of water-colour paints for his 21st birthday.

Following stints as a trainee chef and barman, he become a mining engineer in Scotland, but continued to develop his artistic skills.

In 1989, he decided to paint full-time and sold his first painting for £180 in a Royal Scottish Exhibition.