NPG want Marc Quinn’s head

As Marc Quinn (pictured) unveiled a 50kg solid gold statue of model Kate Moss at the British Museum on Thursday, it emerged that the National Portrait Gallery was attempting to buy one of the artist’s seminal works, Self, a bust of his head made from frozen blood.

In an appeal kick-started by the Art Fund, the UK's leading independent art charity, which has given £100,000 towards the purchase, the NPG has until December 31 in which to raise the £350,000 that Quinn’s gallery, Jay Jopling’s White Cube, are asking for it.

This is not the first “blood head” Quinn produced. That version was shown at the Royal Academy’s infamous Sensation show in 1997, which featured all the major stars of the so-called Brit Art movement, among them Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas and Keith Coventry. That version was owned by Charles Saatchi, who housed it in his Chelsea home. Legend has it that it once melted when the refrigerator in which it was stored was disconnected by builders.

Meanwhile, the British Museum certainly seemed pleased with Quinn’s Moss sculpture, Siren, which cost £1.5m. A spokesman said the supermodel was the "Aphrodite of our times”.