Solid gold Moss sculpture unveiled

5:47pm Thursday 28th August 2008

Art lovers have been offered a first glimpse of the £1.5 million solid gold sculpture of supermodel Kate Moss.

The 50kg statue will go on display in the Nereid Gallery of the British Museum, where it will be surrounded by beauties such as Crouching Venus, the goddess of love.

Siren was made by Marc Quinn, the artist whose most famous work was Alison Lapper Pregnant. His sculpture is said to be the largest gold statue to be made in the world since the time of Ancient Egypt.

The London-born artist previously created Sphinx, a white-painted bronze sculpture of fashion icon Moss, 34, in a contorted yoga pose. Quinn is also known for Self, a bust of his head made from eight pints of his own frozen blood.

The marble sculpture of Lapper, who was born with no arms and shortened legs, was on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square for 20 months.

Quinn said of using Moss as a subject: "I thought the next thing to do would be to make a sculpture of the person who's the ideal beauty of the moment. But even Kate Moss doesn't live up to the image."

Quinn's latest work, which is thought to also show Moss in a yoga pose, is part of a collection, entitled Statuephilia, by contemporary artists going on display at the British Museum. Each work will be placed in a separate room within the museum, alongside the permanent sculpture collection which dates back 250 years.

Damien Hirst will place 200 new plastic skulls, entitled Cornucopia, in the Enlightenment Gallery. Last year the artist sold his diamond-encrusted skull for a reputed £50 million, making it the most expensive piece of contemporary art.

Antony Gormley will display Case for an Angel I, a precursor to his celebrated public sculpture Angel of the North. Raised on a plinth and with a nine-metre wingspan, the work will fill the entire front hall of the museum and reference the Egyptian, Assyrian and Classical statues in the British Museum's galleries.

The exhibition is the subject of a Channel 4 documentary The Sculpture Diaries to be broadcast in the autumn.

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