Banksy's take on Monet masterpiece sells for 7.6 million pounds

Banksy
# 22 October 2020 11:33 (UTC +04:00)

An oil painting by British street artist Banksy parodying a Claude Monet masterpiece was sold in London on Wednesday for about 7.5 million pounds (about $9.8 million), the second highest price at auction for the mysterious artist, APA reports citing CGTN.

The oil on canvas work, "Show Me the Monet," a modern take on Monet's impressionist classic "The Water-Lily Pond," was sold at Sotheby's following a bidding battle.

"The hammer came down after five determined collectors battled for nearly nine minutes to drive the final price beyond its estimate of 3,000,000-5,000,000 pounds to become the second highest price for the artist at auction," Sotheby's said.

The sale comes a year after a Banksy painting depicting the British parliament populated by chimpanzees smashed the record for the street artist by fetching nearly 9.9 million pounds.

On that occasion, the 2009 work titled "Devolved Parliament" attracted a 13-minute battle between 10 different bidders.

"Show Me the Monet" was created in 2005, as part of a collection called "The Crude Oils" and had first been shown publicly in only Banksy's second gallery exhibition.

The painting transforms Monet's masterpiece depicting a Japanese-style bridge in his famous garden at Giverny into a modern-day fly-tipping spot.

Instead of an idyllic lily pond, the composition shows discarded shopping trollies and a fluorescent orange traffic cone floating in the water beneath the bridge.

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