It cost £12 million to make, has a £50 million price tag and resembles at first glance a cross between a disco glitter ball and a WAG handbag.

Damien Hirst’s latest creation – a platinum cast of a human skull encrusted with three times the number of diamonds on the Imperial State Crown – is, by his own admission, “quite bling”.

Hirst confessed yesterday that he was worried that it would look like something worn by Ali G, the comic character who has a fondness for ostentatious jewellery. “You spend all that money and you end up with something that looks like a disco ball – shock horror,” he said.

“Initially it looks quite bling, but actually it’s calm and serene. Someone said, ‘How can you justify it when you see homeless people on the streets with nothing?’ But I would hope anybody looking at it would get some hope and lift from it. The world is better with it in it.”

For the Love of God is, in terms of raw materials, the most expensive piece of contemporary artwork manufactured and, with an estimated insurance premium of £75,000 a year, one of the costliest to exhibit.

White Cube, the London gallery that is showing the work, declined to comment on security costs, but visitors are escorted to the artwork ten at a time in a code-operated lift and under the glare of closed circuit television cameras. Security guards are present in darkened exhibit room, their presence betrayed only by the occasional sqawking of walkie-talkies.

Charles Dupplin, chairman of the art and private client division of Hiscox insurers, said that the piece was the most intrinsically valuable of the past 100 years. “The only contemporary objet d’art that compares with it is the throne built for the late Emperor Bokassa of the Central African Empire,” Mr Dupplin said.

Like many of Hirst’s works, he came up with the idea but left the craftsmanship to other people. The work was carried out by Mark Evans and his staff at Bentley and Skinner, a silversmith based in Bond Street, Central London. It cast the skull in 2,156 grams of platinum and set it with 8,601 ethically sourced diamonds that are ranked as flawless or VVS (very very small inclusions).

The largest of the diamonds, which is mounted on the skull’s forehead, is technically described as a “magnificent internally flawless light fancy pink brilliant-cut pear-shaped diamond” weighing 52.4 carats.

Only the teeth of the original skull – which belonged to a European man who lived in the 18th or early 19th century – have been transferred to the cast. Hirst has kept the remainder as a memento and has fitted it with gold teeth.

The fate of the skull’s first owner is unknown except that he died in his mid30s and his remains eventually came into the hands of a taxidermy shop in North London.

Hirst said that the £50 million price was intended to prevent a buyer from selling it on quickly. “We try to make sure the buyer is going to keep it and not trade it. We would like to sell it to somebody who would display it rather than put it in a bank vault where it would never be seen again.”

Tim Marlowe, director of exhibitions at White Cube, where Hirst’s exhibition opens today, said that he was aware of “two or three serious offers” at the £50 million asking price.

Hirst has also discussed the possibility of displaying the skull at the British Museum with Neil MacGregor, the museum’s director. He said that the skull was intended to explore the way that wealth and death interacted.

As to whether the skull will be judged to be art, Hirst is not bothered. “I’ve stopped worrying about what art is. If it’s in an art gallery on the wall or the floor it’s probably art. There’s art, there’s great art, there’s bad art.” He added: “My work is not bad art.”

How to get in
— To see the skull, visitors must reserve a time-slot by obtaining a free ticket from whitecube-tickets.com or in person at the Mason’s Yard branch of the gallery

— The other exhibits in the exhibition, which is split between Mason’s Yard in St James’s, Central London, and the gallery’s branch in Hoxton Square, East London, do not require a reservation

— They include a pair of tanks containing two halves of a shark sliced down the middle and a triptych of crucified goats

Source: White Cube

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010