AN artwork listing the defeats of the English national football team is to be auctioned off for between £400,000 and £600,000.

The piece by controversial Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan lists every occasion the team lost a game between Scotland's 2-1 defeat of the side in Glasgow in 1874 and Romania's 2-1 victory at the 1998 World Cup.

Etched into black granite, like an epitaph on a memorial, the artwork charts the defeats like a list of deaths for mourning.

Describing the piece, Cattelan said: "Carved into it are all the defeats of England's national football team. I guess it's a piece which talks about pride, missed opportunities and death."

The artist first exhibited the football monument, Untitled, at an exhibition in London in 1999.

It is now on display at Sotheby's New Bond Street gallery in London until its sale - which comes after England suffered their worst ever performance at the World Cup last year - on March 10.

Cattelan is well known for his satirical and humorous sculptures, including his other well known work La Nona Ora (The Ninth Hour) which depicts Pope John Paul II being struck down by a meteorite.

In 2001, one of his artworks - a stuffed, suspended horse - was bought for £619,750 by a mystery bidder at Christie's in London.

While his image of Pope John Paul II also sold for £619,500 in New York.

The self-taught artist is known as a bit of a joker on the art scene who regularly uses a stand-in for media interviews who evades answering most questions and gives nonsensical answers when he does respond.

At the 1993 Venice Biennale exhibition, he sold his space to an advertising agency which installed a billboard promoting a new perfume.

Cattelan also once erected a full size Hollywood sign over the largest rubbish tip in Palermo, Sicily.