AN ARTIST who submitted work to the Royal Academy has been told that his sculpture does not come up to scratch — but that the base it was sitting on is a work of art in itself.

David Hensel’s One Day Closer to Paradise, a sculpture of a laughing head on a slate plinth, was mistakenly judged as two separate pieces after the parts became separated in transit.

The head failed to catch the judges’ imagination, but the plinth caused a stir.

The slab of slate, which features a bone-shaped attachment designed to prevent the head from rolling away, was picked from more than 9,000 submissions to feature in the Academy’s Summer Exhibition.

David Mach, one of the Academicians responsible for choosing the piece, said that he thought it was a good example of minimalist art.

“It’s a quirky little piece [without the head],” he told The Times. “We were quite puzzled by it and that’s why we liked it.”

No one noticed the error until Hensel, a 64-year-old sculptor and jeweller based in East Grinstead, Surrey, visited the gallery last Friday during a preview exhibition for friends of the Academy.

“I was very excited about going to London to see my sculpture on display, but I walked all the way round the gallery looking for it and couldn’t find it,” he said.

“Eventually, I saw just the base on a shelf with the piece of wood that was meant to keep the head in place on it, which looks like a bone.”

He notified a gallery official, who turned a shade of pink, he said. “I had to have a laugh at myself. Some people have the ability to look at anything and say it is art but I would rather have my sculpture there.”

He had originally hoped to sell the sculpture for £3,640, but now believes that he can sell the plinth separately for a higher sum.

“I think it does have artistic merit as it is now,” he told The Times. “It has become art because it was chosen by these eminent artists. I thought the thing to do would be to withdraw that one from sale and make a new base for the head. I could then auction the base on eBay.”

He drew comparisons between his plinth and Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, a urinal that was considered art because it was displayed in an art gallery.

A replica of Fountain is now on display in Tate Modern.

The Academy was undecided what to do with the plinth last night. Mach and his fellow coordinator, Alison Wilding, travelled to the gallery to review the sculpture.

Mach said that he thought that the sculpture should be restored, but an Academy spokeswoman said that the plinth could remain as it is or be withdrawn.

“The head was rejected,” she said. “It wasn’t deemed worthy. Only the base was thought to merit inclusion.”

Hensel, who is a member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors and has been an artist for 25 years, said that the sculpture’s title was equally appropriate to the base as it was to the head.

“The sculpture was supposed to show someone contemplating going to paradise, but it has just turned into a big laugh.

“Perhaps that is what happens when you ascend to Heaven — you become invisible like my sculpture.”