THREE Japanese ivory carvings worth thousands of pounds have been stolen in a daytime raid at Bolton Museum and Art Gallery.

Thieves stole the highly collectable small pieces of Netsuke carvings which are more than 100 years old by unscrewing a display case where the carvings were kept as part of the Water, Water exhibition.

The thefts happened despite the presence of security staff and a CCTV system in the museum.

The carvings -- between two and three inches high -- went missing between 10am and 2pm yesterday. Police are now viewing CCTV footage from the museum for clues and appealing to anybody with information to come forward.

The pieces, small ivory Netsuke carved toggles, were originally used to tether a medicine box or purse worn dangling from the waist.

The pieces portray a fisherman with raised arms sitting next to a basket of fish; an ivory ball carved with dragonflies, butterflies, tortoises, frogs, snails and crabs and two seated women with one holding an octopus by one of its tentacles.

A Bolton Council spokesman said: "We hope that the pieces can be recovered and returned to the collection. We are working with the police and are reviewing CCTV footage.

"The thieves apparently unscrewed a display case to get to the carvings and, fortunately, did not do any real damage.

"Some Netsuke items are very collectable and we would ask that if anyone is offered them that they contact the police."

Cllr Laurie Williamson, the council's executive member for culture, said he was "taken aback" at the news of the theft.

In September, 1999, a watercolour painting by William Leighton Leitch called An Indian Ruin, worth £2,000, was stolen while it was being moved from the museum to Smithills Hall as it was being unloaded from a van.

It has never been recovered

The Water, Water exhibition is scheduled to run until the summer and features some of the town's most rarely-seen treasures.

It includes masterpieces such as Turner's Rafts on the Rhine and Thomas Creswick's breathtaking but little seen panorama of Morecambe, called Loading the Cargo.

The show also features popular gallery fixtures such as Thomas Moran's much loved painting called Nearing Camp, Evening on the Upper Colorado River.