A Chinese artist simply known as Zhao was commissioned to build the 1.8-metre-high Disney character Nick Wilde, the fox from the film Zootopia, for a shopping centre south of Shanghai.

​The statue took three days to build, using 100,000 Lego bricks, but an hour after it went on display, a small child scampered beneath the security ropes and toppled it to the ground, turning it into a mountain of deconstructed rubble, web publication Shanghaiist and Weibo have reported.

Zhao was reportedly as "understanding as one could be", saying the child could have no idea how much time, effort and money went into the statue.

He was less forgiving of the shopping centre employees, saying they should have secured the area better.

The child's parents apologised for the Lego disaster and offered to compensate Zhao, who refused payment.

Rob Deakin, founder of Melbourne's Lego play centre Inside the Brick, in Fairfield, said Zhao's construction technique could have been better.

"Toy companies glue all their retail display models together and they often have metal frames attached to a metal base to provide extra stability," Mr Deakin said.

He said building with Lego was about the joy of building.

"Now those bricks can become something else," Mr Deakin said.

Some of Zhao's statue were glued but most were not.

Shanghai has had a bad run with children destroying artwork. In May, two parents were caught filming their children destroying artwork at the Shanghai Museum of Glass.

Unfortunately, since the Zootopia figure was only partially sealed with glue, less than one third of Nick Wilde can be recovered.