In the real world, paying £30,000 for a till receipt for goods worth £70.32 simply wouldn't add up.
But even in the world of modern art, the decision by one of Britain's most prestigious galleries to buy the supermarket receipt - a 'conceptual' piece by little known artist Ceal Floyer - has attracted ridicule.
The artwork, entitled Monochrome Till Receipt (White), is part of a new exhibition at London's Tate Britain, which receives government and lottery funding.
Pakistani-born Miss Floyer, 41, who graduated from Goldsmith's art college in London in 1994, describes the work as a modern still life where objects are imagined rather than shown.
The receipt lists 36 items, all of which are white, including boil-in-the-bag rice, (£1.77) and Andrex toilet roll (£1.25).
Despite the estimated £30,000 price-tag, the piece comes with a list of instructions from the artist, stating that a new receipt must be used every time it is shown.
Because she is now based in Germany, the latest shopping trip was left to exhibition curator Andrew Wilson, who was simply told to base it on the original list, now archived by the Tate.
He explained: 'Till receipts are light-sensitive and fall apart so they have to be replaced.
'Also it is fixed to the wall, so each time it is taken down, it is ruined.'
He called the piece 'an imaginative leap of faith from the daily drudge of going to the supermarket to the idea of the domestic still life painting, but also with the supposed purity of Modernist monochrome abstract painting'.
However, some critics have not been so kind.
David Lee, editor of art newsletter The Jackdaw, said: 'Anyone who is interested in a supermarket receipt is probably either certifiably insane or just doesn't get out enough.
'The Tate have bought an incredibly limited piece of work here which has no stamina as a work of art.'
-SIMON CABLE
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