Hirst butterfly painting sells for £2m

A 17-foot-wide butterfly painting by Damien Hirst sold for more than £2 million.

I Am Become Death, Shatterer Of Worlds – a title echoing the words of scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer after the detonation of the first atomic bomb – is Mr Hirst’s largest painting using butterfly wings.

The image auctioned for £2,169,250 at Christie’s post-war and contemporary sale in London. The firm had estimated the painting would sell for between £2.5 million to £3.5 million.

The work is created entirely from thousands of dead butterfly wings placed on to a background of red gloss paint.

It was previously owned by the Gagosian Gallery in London.