A large photographic image of a dirty brown potato has fetched more than AUD$1.5million.

Irish visual artist Kevin Abosch is better known for charging hundreds of thousands for portraits of Silicon Valley’s big wigs, but the spud appealed enough to a German businessman to shell out $1million Euros – making it the 15th highest price for a photograph ever.

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Abosch applied his signature style to the potato portrait, placing it on a black backdrop.

When Abosch is not photographing potatoes, he spends his time taking portraits of stars such as Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, actor Johnny Depp, Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg and Yoko Ono.

“I see commonalities between humans and potatoes that speak to our relationship as individuals within a collective species,” Abosch told CNN after the incredible sale.

“Generally, the life of a harvested potato is violent and taken for granted. I use the potato as a proxy for the ontological study of the human experience.”

Perhaps the artist’s Irish roots were another reason for his interest in the root vegetable.