GARDAI have interviewed the makers of a British film being shot in Dublin after the disappearance of a valuable painting at one of its locations.

A portrait worth €75,000 is missing from Newman House on St Stephen’s Green, which has been used by Becoming Jane, a film about the novelist Jane Austen’s doomed love for an Irish lawyer.

“We have talked to the film-makers and indeed everyone who had access to the building at the time,” a garda source said yesterday.

“Our investigation is ongoing and we are treating it as a theft.”

The 18th-century painting is of the family of Richard Chapell Whaley, who built Newman House. It was on loan from the Whaley family to University College Dublin, the owner of the building.

Ironically, the family is believed to have given the wax portrait to UCD for safe keeping. The university has insured the work, but its value was probably as much sentimental as economic to the Whaleys.

Mystery surrounds why this particular painting was targeted. Although not large, 40cm by 58cm, it is in a heavy frame and an ebonised oak case.

The thieves ignored other valuable paintings in the building, which has its own security.

Gardai have contacted galleries and auction houses in Dublin to ask them to be on the lookout for the painting, which was reported missing 10 days ago, and plan to contact institutions in Britain.

Detectives say the speedy return of this work is paramount because, being created in wax, it is very fragile.

A spokeswoman for Becoming Jane had no comment to make about the theft, while UCD would only confirm that gardai were investigating the matter.

A garda source said filming was not happening in the actual room from which the painting was removed.