The head of the Nobel Committee today placed this year's Peace Prize diploma and gold medal on an empty chair representing absent laureate Liu Xiaobo.
Thorbjoern Jagland also called on Beijing to free the new laureate from his Chinese prison cell.
'We regret that the laureate is not present here today,' Mr Jagland said in Oslo City Hall.
He explained that it was impossible to hand it to Liu or any of his close family members, who were prevented from travelling to Oslo for the ceremony.
Liu, 54, is an author and former professor who was at the forefront of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
He was jailed in December 2009 for 11 years on subversion charges after co-authoring 'Charter 08', a manifesto that spread quickly on the internet calling for political reform and greater rights in China.
As Communist authorities in Beijing fumed at the award for the dissident and pro-China demonstrators gathered outside the Oslo awards venue, Mr Jagland insisted Liu was an innocent man.
'Liu has only exercised his civil rights. He has not done anything wrong. He must be released,' he said.
China is furious about the award, saying the prize is an obscenity that represents the sinister intentions of the West towards China.
Beijing described the Norwegian Nobel Committee as 'clowns,' and threatened 'consequences' for countries that showed Liu support.
It had mounted a diplomatic campaign to stop other countries sending representatives to the ceremony - Russia, Serbia, Venezuela, Iraq and Iran were among 19 countries who did not attend.
However, dozens of ambassadors joined Norway's king and queen for the speeches and ceremony in Oslo City Hall.
In China live broadcasts of the event by CNN and the BBC were blacked out by censors as last year's laureate, US President Barack Obama, hailed Liu as a representative of 'universal' values, calling on China to release the jailed dissident 'as soon as possible.'
Liu will receive his gold medal, Nobel diploma and prize money of €1.1m at a later date.
Today marked only the second time in the more than the 100-year history of the prize that neither the laureate nor a representative was able to accept the award.
The only other time was when German journalist and pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, who was locked up in a Nazi concentration camp, could not travel to Oslo for his prize ceremony in 1936.
