Study For "Madam X" is expected to fetch up to �20,000

Study For Madam X, which the painter gave to the anonymous woman, was sold at auction in Edinburgh on Thursday.

The title was chosen because the subject, who is not the seller, is sat so her arms and legs form an X-shape.

The vendor auctioned another Vettriano - whose Singing Butler is the UK's top selling art print - for �4,935,

Study For Feeding Frenzy had been expected to sell for �5,000.

A third work by the artist, Band Of Tossers, a group of men gambling on a pier bandstand, fetched �21,150.

Obsession and ritual

Auctioneer Bonhams says Study For Madam X shows Vettriano's darker side.

"The painting screams of sex, obsession and ritual," said Bonhams senior valuer Chris Brickley.

"The figure lurking in the background represents the male obsession with erotic love and the attraction of the female form."

Born in 1951 to a Scottish father and Italian mother, Vettriano taught himself to paint in a Fife bedsit after being given water-colour paints for his 21st birthday.