A bar frequented by drunken comics at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival may, in hindsight, not have been the safest place to exhibit ten photographs of Tracey Emin.

The untitled display of self-portraits, consisting of enlarged Polaroids of the provocative artist in various states of undress, has now shrunk to nine after a thief liberated one from its Velcro hanging in the Loft Bar at the Gilded Balloon Teviot on Saturday evening.

Celebrities in attendance — who for legal reasons we should point out are above suspicion of either theft or inebriation — included Roy Walker, formerly of Catchphrase, and the comedians Rich Hall and Reginald D. Hunter.

Staff at the venue, who had foiled a previous attempt to remove the portraits a few nights earlier, are yet to break the news to the mistress of detritus and despair. “She’s going to be furious,” one said fearfully.

The artist, a retrospective of whose work opened this month at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, is on holiday in Catalonia and could not be reached for comment. So there’s still time to return the missing picture.