Damien Hirst, the UK’s wealthiest artist, is part of the investment group that bought his diamond-encrusted skull for a record £50m earlier this week and that plans to resell the work.

The work, entitled For the Love of God, is a platinum cast of the skull of a 35-year-old, 18th-century man. It has the man’s original teeth and is covered with 8,601 near-flawless pave-set diamonds, including a large pink diamond worth more than £4m in the centre of its forehead. The £50m tag made the price the highest ever paid for the work of a living artist.