One of Scotland's top sculptors has created a 10ft high masterpiece out of solid black granite made in China.
The cost and scale of creating the 20-ton Venus Stone meant Steve Dilworth had to turn to a stoneworks in Xiamen, a coastal sub-provincial city in south-eastern Fujian province.
The Chinese worked off a model, less than 2ft high, made by Dilworth at his home in the Outer Hebrides, who then communicated by phone and email how he wanted the job done.
A team of Chinese stonemasons worked flat out over the past three months to create what Dilworth says is among his finest work.
The whole cost of the project - including £1000 shipping bill - is around £25,000, less than a quarter of the cost of making it in the UK.
"There is no way I could have made the Venus Stone in this country - it just wouldn't have happened," said Dilworth from his home on the Isle of Harris. "You couldn't even buy the raw stone for that price."
Now completed, the Venus Stone has been shipped by container ship to Britain and will arrive in the next few days.
It will be displayed at the Goodwood Sculpture Park in Sussex where it will go on sale at a price of more than £100,000.
Dilworth, whose work is in public buildings throughout the world, also designed the prestigious Dailly Bridge in Ayrshire - the design based on fish vertebrae and which was funded by the Royal Society for the Arts, South Ayrshire Council and the Scottish Arts Council.
He first used the Chinese last year for a slightly smaller granite project, called Claw, which still weighed nine tons and stood about 7ft high. It was shipped back to the UK with a price tag of more than £90,000 - again destined for Goodwood.
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