Britain may have escaped sinking into a bathtub-shaped recession but most consumers would still think twice before splashing out half a million pounds for a good wash.
That's how much upmarket department store Harrods is asking for a rock crystal tub by Florentine luxury furnishings group Baldi.
The item, on display at the Knightsbridge store during July and carrying a £530,000 price tag, is carved from a single block of the purest white rock crystal.
It is 2m long, 55cm high and weighs about 2.5 tons when filled.
The tub was cut from a 10-ton block discovered in the Amazon region of Brazil.
Paolo Baldi, father of current chief executive Luca, purchased the rock and had it extracted and transported intact to Italy.
The block was cut into two; the first half was cut into a tub and sold to a Russian magnate for £567,502 in 2008.
Each tub, fashioned by Luca Bojola, is unique in its design.
Both were sculpted with diamond cuts and left partly in the rough to show off all the natural beauty of the original block.
Luca Baldi told Sky News the tub's creators had been entranced by the rock's "precious transparency" and "overpowered by the untamed energy" of the part left in its natural state.
"What was our rationale? To create the wildest, craziest, most beautiful and luxurious object ever imagined for a bathroom," he said.
