A 16-year-old unmade bed that turned into an art installation was sold for US$4.3 million at a London auction Tuesday, becoming one of the four art pieces that achieved world record at the Christie's auction, CNN reported.

The artist Tracey Emin, 50, calls her controversial art installation "My Bed."

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Emin said that the work is like "a piece of history, a time capsule," representing a period of her life. It was where she spent four days severely depressed and could barely leave her bed, she told journalists.

According to CNN, the artist recalled getting out of bed and saw art in the mess she left behind.

"Suddenly I had this vision of taking it out of the bedroom space and putting it into a white gallery space," the British artist said, declaring the unmade bed a "fantastic artwork."

What brought the piece to life are not the blankets and linens but the objects surrounding the unmade bed that tell the story of a broken heart.

The 1998 piece featured a rumpled bed and a littered floor with discarded condoms, cigarette butts, bits of food and empty vodka bottles.

It first caught the art world attention when it was shortlisted for the 1999 Turner Prize, prompting a debate on contemporary artists and their works.

The wealthy art collector Charles Saatchi bought the installation in 2000 for a reported price of US$248,000.

It was featured at the Christie's as one of the key artworks by the Young British Artist movement to support the Saatchi Gallery Foundation.

Emin was at the auction when the crowd broke into applause after it was sold to an anonymous bidder. She told BBC that she felt sad about the sale, saying that she did not know where her piece was going and was hoping that a benefactor would donate it to a museum.

Emin, a professor of drawing at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, is one of Britain's most famous living artists. She is known to feature her personal life in her artwork, such as with her 1997 art piece entitled "Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995," which featured a tent appliqued with all the names of her lovers. It was destroyed in the 2004 Momart London warehouse fire.

Tagsunmade bed artwork, unmade bed art installation, Christie's art auction, Tracey Emin