A young Chinese boy has accidentally brought a $20,000 Lego sculpture — which took three painstaking days and nights to put together — crashing down, just an hour after it was put on public display.

The 1.8-metre sculpture of Nick Wilde, a character from the Disney film Zootopia, was on display at the Lego Expo in Ningbo, China, when the incident occurred, an hour into the opening day of the exhibit.

• Stoned sheep go on ‘psychotic rampage’ in Welsh village
• Hang on Donald. There’s a new guy in the race

It took the artist, known as Zhao, three days and nights to construct the figure — and, according to local media, it was worth more than 100,000 yuan ($AU20, 000).

He said he had to rush to finish the sculpture in time for the exhibit’s opening.

Zhao said he had to rush to finish the sculpture in time. Photo: Weibo

“I took off some parts and put some on, over and over again, especially the eyes,” Zhao said, according to the Chinese tabloid Global Times.

“They were too big at first, so [Nick’s] sly and wise-cracking traits were somehow missing.

“I had to redo some parts.”

But despite being left crushed by the incident, Zhao refused compensation from the parents of the boy and accepted their apology.

“The child did not intend to break it,” he said, according to CCTV News.

It is not the first time a child has accidentally damaged an art work.

Last year, a 12-year-old boy punched a hole through a centuries-old, $2 million Italian oil painting after he tripped and fell into the piece at an exhibition in Taiwan.