Name: Dumpling
Brand: Damien Hirst
Rating: 5 (235 reviews)

Track auction value trend

The value of Damien Hirst’s Dumpling (signed) is estimated to be worth between £2,900 and £4,350. This screenprint, created in 1999, has an auction history of 7 total sales since its entry to the market in May 2001. Over the past five years, the hammer price has ranged from £3,200 in June 2023 to £5,933 in October 2020. The average annual growth rate of this work is 2%. The edition size of this artwork is limited to 150.

Meaning & Analysis

Created in 1999 by Young British Artist Damien Hirst, Dumpling is one of 13 screen prints in The Last Supper series. Imitative of pharmaceutical packaging, Dumpling uses a simple, limited palette of three colours and presents a commentary on the commodification of medicinal products.

The word ‘Dumpling’ replaces the medicine name, and in place of the manufacturer's logo Hirst creates another, using his own name. Some pharmaceutical descriptions and measurements remain, the words ‘Lisinopril dihydrate’ sit awkwardly beneath the artwork title.

In this series Hirst takes everyday, cafeteria foods and holds them up to Christian faith and the perceived glamour of pharmaceuticals. He shows us how these medicines have become commonplace, their packaging familiar and the contents trusted. For Hirst our relationship with medicine is a belief system, very much like art or religion.

Pharmaceutical imagery, glamour and idolisation can be found early in the artist’s career in his Medicine Cabinet series. Empty medicine packaging is displayed in cabinets under titles including ‘Holidays’, ‘New York’ and ‘God’. Later, he uses similar cabinets to display brightly coloured pills and cubic zirconia.

Hirst’s ongoing questioning of human faith can be found again and again throughout his work. Signed and unnumbered (as is true of all prints in the series) this print can be considered an important piece within the artist’s catalogue raisonné.