An artist has created the world 's smallest sculpture only for it to be accidentally crushed by a finger while being photographed . Jonty Hurwitz 's creations are so tiny they can rest on a human hair and are the same size of an ant 's head . Having spent months working on the pieces , the 45-year-old from Chichester , West Sussex , took them to a photographer to have them pictured under a microscope . But within minutes his work had been destroyed by the stroke of the lab technician 's finger . Scroll down for video . The world 's smallest sculpture ( seen in the eye of a needle , above ) was accidentally destroyed by a photographer hired to help its creator capture it in pictures . The artwork , seen here on a human hair , was produced using 3D printing technolog by Jonty Hurwitz . ' I went off to have the original sculptures photographed so I found a laboratory with an electron microscope and the photographic technology , ' said Mr Hurwitz . 'The technician went to change the orientation and then for the next half an hour we were looking for the piece through the lens . 'Eventually I noticed there was a fingerprint exactly where the sculpture used to be and I was like `` man you have just destroyed the smallest art pieces '' ever made - I slightly freaked out . ' The sculptures are less than 1mm tall and are produced via a process called nano-painting . They are too small to be seen with the naked eye so must be viewed and photographed under a microscope . Mr Hurwitz uses a 3D printing technology to produce them . Describing the process on his website , he said : 'The structure is created using a ground-breaking new 3D printing technology and a technique called Multiphoton Lithography . Mr Hurwitz has produced a number of nano sculptures using the same technology though the naked woman above is believed to have been the smallest . The artist from Chichester , West Sussex , described his work as a combination of 'art and Quantum Physics ' 'Ultimately these works are created using the physical phenomenon of two photon absorption . Art , literally created with Quantum Physics . 'This two photon absorption occurs only at the tiny focal point - basically a tiny 3D pixel ( called a Voxel ) . 'The sculpture is then moved along fractionally by a computer controlled process and the next pixel is created . Slowly , over hours and hours the entire sculpture is assembled pixel by pixel and layer by layer . ' The sculptures are believed to be the smallest representation of the human form ever created by man .
Jonty Hurwitz created the tiny sculpture which was less than 100 feet tall . He enlisted the help of lab technicians to photograph it under pressure . One of the team accidentally crushed the artwork when photographing it . Mr Hurwitz 's sculptures are believed to be the smallest in the world .