Yeah, almost a million dollars for a foot-high statue of a famously skinny model. Must be some statue, right?
It is some statue. Not because it’s of supermodel Kate Moss — who at the time was considered by artist Marc Quinn the living embodiment of what Western culture considered beautiful. That was 2006 or so, back when the world had a screwy perception of beauty because of Tom Hanks‘s hair in The Da Vinci Code.
No, the statue is special because it’s carved from solid 18-carat gold. About 22 pounds of solid gold. It’s a little more than 13″ tall and about 9″ around. The gold alone is worth about $627,000.
According to reports, an “Asian collector” paid $908,245 for the statue, which depicts Kate Moss in a yoga position she probably doesn’t do, her legs and arms behind her head like some kind of spiderbot.
The name of the statue is Microcosmos (Siren), which translates into “the tiny world of a hot babe.” You can read more about it from The Business Insider, and you can read more about the model in our Who2 biography of Kate Moss.
As a bonus, here’s an artist’s rendering of Kate Moss as the ultimate in human beauty:
