Most expensive statue made of bronze sold at auction

At Christie’s auction house in New York, USA, on 11 May 2015, Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti’s 1947 work L’homme au doigt (Pointing Man) was sold for $141 m (£98.9 m), the most ever paid for a bronze statue at auction. The 180-cm sculpture shows a man – tall and spindly (Giacometti’s trademark style) – with one arm extended in a pointing gesture. It is believed that the left arm was originally curled around a second figure, which Giacometti subsequently removed.

Created at short notice for an exhibition in New York in 1947, Giacometti's L’homme au doigt was reportedly made in a single night between midnight and 9 a.m. He produced a total of six casts of the piece, most of which are in museums around the world.