Hirst's diamond-and-platinum skull fetches $100M

British artist Damien Hirst's latest headline-grabbing artwork a platinum skull encrusted with more than 8,000 diamonds has fetched its more than $100 million asking price.

The sale of the skull, entitled For the Love of God, to an unnamed investment group for 50 million (about $107 million Cdn) was confirmed on Thursday by officials at the artist's White Cube gallery in London and Hirst's business manager. Details of the deal will be finalized in the next few weeks.

The skull was unveiled in early June at a White Cube exhibit of Hirst's newest creations.It immediately caused a sensation in the art world for a variety of reasons, including for its hefty price tag.

Cast from the remains of an 18th century man and incorporating the original teeth from the skull, the platinum sculpture is covered with 8,601 diamonds, including a large stone worth more than 4 million (about $8.6 million Cdn) embedded in the forehead.

A spokeswoman for the gallery told Reuters that Hirst continues to own a share of the skull sculpture and will oversee a planned global tour of it.

Hirst is one of the world's wealthiest and best-known living contemporary artists, but he continues to divide critics with his creations.

He rose to fame in the early 1990s after being discovered by influential art collector Charles Saatchi and initially won a "bad-boy" image for artworks that included massive displays of sharks, cows, sheep and other beasts carved into pieces and preserved in formaldehyde.

The Turner Prize-winner's subsequent pop culture and media-inspired pieces have alsoincluded a steel and glass pill cabinet filled with hand-painted pills and insect-encrusted canvases.