Hirst's "The Golden Jubilee (Green)" 2008, oil on canvas, via Gagosian

Damien Hirst’s recession priced $300,000 photo-realist paintings of giant gemstones are selling swiftly at Gagosian’s Madison Avenue outpost.

Publicity photograph of actual "Golden Jubilee" diamond, owned by Thailand

The series, titled The Golden Jubilee, doesn’t have the most original composition. Like Warhol’s soup cans, Hirst has appropriated the title and aesthetic from a famous gemstone, a 545 carat caramel-hued diamond, reported to be the largest facet cut diamond in the world. The namesake stone is part of the collection of Thailand’s royal jewels.

Hirst’s paintings directly relate to a publicity photo of the spotlighted  stone, which the artist converted into more appealing shades of green blue, red and white, and captured in paint. The actual stone is worth about $20 million, according to gem dealer Alan Bronstein.

The works are part of the recently opened End of An Era exhibit which includes spot, spin and butterfly paintings–all of which Hirst has recently sworn off. The show remains on view until March 6.

Hirst's "Forgotten Promises" 2008, 10 foot cabinet

It’s unclear how the bigger ticket items are faring, but I was able to glean some prices from market sources. The retail figures are pegged below auction levels.

The priciest item is a gaudy 28-foot long gold cabinet containing 30,000 manufactured diamonds, priced at $10 million. This is about half the cost of Hirst’s more evocative and appealing Lullaby Spring, a stainless cabinet filled with pills, which holds the artist’s auction record at $19.1 million. It was sold at Sotheby’s in London in 2007.

A smaller ten foot wide cabinet is priced $3.5 million, according to a collector. (Hirst’s diamond encrusted skull, using authentic stones, reportedly sold for $100 million in 2007 to an unnamed investment group, according to the White Cube gallery).

Signs at Gagosian Gallery directing to Hirst show

The centerpiece of the current ensemble is a 2009 decapitated bull’s head, titled End of an Era, which Hirst told Bloomberg’s Katya Kazakina in an interview is his final formaldehyde work.

Hirst's 2009 "End of an Era," via Gagosian

The bull’s tongue wags and he wears a strange sedated expression. The head is surmounted by a gold disc, with the entrails visible from the back. The case and beast are mounted on a marble plinth.

The piece is priced $4.5 million, according to a trade source. That’s well below the $19 million fetched for the 2008 Golden Calf at his single-owner sale at Sotheby’s in London in 2008, but then again, maybe that era really is over.