The work, entitled 'For the Love of God', is a skull cast in platinum and encrusted with 8,601 diamonds. Carbon dating has shown that the original skull on which Hirst's work is modelled dates to the 18th century.

Hirst remains best known for earlier conceptual works in which creatures including a shark and a cow were pickled in formaldehyde inside glass tanks.

The diamond-encrusted skull was sold to an group of anonymous investors, a spokeswoman for the White Cube gallery in London, where it has been on display from the beginning of the summer, told AFP.

Death is one of the central themes in works completed by Hirst, 41, who once said that the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States were like a work of art, but later apologised. © 2007 Australian Broadcasting Corporation