More than £10 million worth of art has been bought under a Government-backed scheme to help people buy original works, it has been announced.

Some 12,500 people have bought works of art using interest-free loans since the Own Art scheme was set up five years ago.

The Government-funded Arts Council, which runs the scheme, said it had given a "significant boost to galleries and artists around the country".

A quarter of buyers earned less than the national average wage, while the scheme has generated £6.5 million in income for artists, a spokesman for the Arts Council said.

The Own Art programme offers interest-free loans of up to £2,000, repaid over ten months, to people to buy artworks including paintings, photography, sculpture, glassware and furniture.

Around 80 per cent of the work bought under the scheme has been fine art such as paintings or sculptures; around 15 per cent ceramics, jewellery and glassware and around two per cent photography.

Artists whose work has been sold under the scheme include Sarah Morris, renowned for her complex abstract works.

One of her prints was bought under the scheme for £395 from the Whitechapel Gallery in east London.

Iwona Blazwick, director of the Whitechapel Gallery said: "The Own Art initiative is a simple and effective way of enabling people to start their own contemporary art collection."