This is the latest work by controversial artist James Cauty.

Mr Cauty has re-created a set of images of the Queen wearing a gas mask, which attracted international media attention last year when Royal Mail forced him to withdraw the prints from sale.

The company said use of the image of the Queen's bust and the mimicking of a stamp's design infringed their copyright and threatened the gallery displaying the prints, artrepublic in Bond Street, Brighton, with legal action.

Now Mr Cauty has re-released the designs, entitled Stamps of Mass Destruction, after making "significant changes" in the hopes of warding off any repeat objections from Royal Mail.

The image of the bust has been altered in a variety of ways and artrepublic's legal team say this new work does not infringe copyright law.

Potential buyers will have to be quick as only 150 are for sale, signed and numbered by Mr Cauty.

Last year the same number sold in just a few days before the remaining 450 had to be withdrawn.

Owner of artrepublic Lawrence Allkin said: "We were amazed by the Royal Mail's response last time and many people felt this amounted to a censorship on art.

"Who knows how they will react this time?"

The gallery's marketing director Andrew Milledge said Royal Mail had not yet been informed that Stamps of Mass Destruction were back.

"It's difficult to say what's going to happen when they find out but we are satisfied with the legal advice we have taken."

Mr Cauty originally created the images in the run-up to the Iraq war, when there was talk of gas masks being re-issued because of the threat of chemical weapons.

He said: "The idea came to me in a dream.

"I dreamt that I'd designed a stamp of mass destruction and millions were printed up and mailed out the day before the Iraqi war started."

Mr Cauty, who says his ambition is to become a "multi-national global propaganda machine", hit the headlines again last November when he released Blacksmoke 5-11', a digitally-produced image of a plane smashing into Big Ben.

He said the pictures were intended to stress the need to fight terrorism at home as well as in foreign countries.

He said he was simply anti-war, and was "just an artist trying to do his job".

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "We are aware of this. new artwork

"We will be investigating this to see if further copyright rules have been broken.

"Copyright in definitive stamps is part of Royal Mail's intellectual property, especially in relation to the The Queen's image."

The new Stamps of Mass Destruction cost £1,035 framed and mounted or £600 unframed.

The prints are available from the gallery or online at www.artrepublic.com.