Lucky for this art collector, the “you break it, you buy it” policy didn’t apply.
A woman admiring a $42,000 “Balloon Dog” sculpture by world-renowned artist Jeff Koons accidentally knocked over the pricey piece, which shattered on the floor of a Miami gallery Thursday night.
The two-decade-old work of art met its unfortunate end during the first day of Art Wynwood, a contemporary art fair in the city, the Miami Herald reported.
“When this thing fell to the ground, it was like how a car accident draws a huge crowd on the highway,” Stephen Gamson, a Wynwood-based artist and art collector, told the Herald.
Gamson said gawkers at Bel-Air Fine Art’s booth were left wondering if the smashed porcelain could have been part of a performance art piece.
But the artist believes the woman — identified as an art collector — just made a mistake by letting her curiosity get the best of her. She may have wondered whether it was a real balloon, he speculated.
An art advisor at the gallery backed up Gamson’s theory, telling the Herald it was just an accident.
Fortunately, the sculpture was covered by insurance and didn’t cost the woman anything, the report said.
The smashed sculpture was a miniature version of Koons’ famed 12-foot-tall Balloon Dog sculpture that’s made out of mirror-polished stainless steel and on display in Los Angeles.
Koons has created a series of the pups between 1994 and 2000 in a variety of colors, sizes and material.
The piece that was destroyed Thursday night stood about 15 inches tall, was blue in color and was made of porcelain.
Koons’ work, especially the dogs, fetch a pretty penny. One of the massive orange versions was sold in 2013 for $58.4 million, according to Time Magazine.
Koons did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
After another porcelain Balloon Dog smashed to bits in 2016, Koons told Page Six it mattered little to him.
“It’s a shame when anything like that happens but, you know, it’s just a porcelain plate,” he said. “We’re really lucky when it’s just objects that get broken, when there’s little accidents like that, because that can be replaced.”
Gamson still believes the broken pieces could be worth a lot of money.
He said he approached a director and offered to buy the porcelain shards on the spot.
“I find value in it even when it’s broken,” Gamson said. “To me, it’s the story. It makes the art even more interesting.”