One of Banksy’s most well-known works of art is expected to fetch up to £50,000 at a Newcastle auction house today.
The ‘Love Rat’ is a screenprint of a graffiti painting that the artist initially painted in Liverpool in 2004.
The item is expected to sell for between £30,000 and £50,000 at Anderson and Garland’s auction today.
However, after the first piece they sold by the mysterious Bristol street artist smashed records, the auctioneers have stated that the’sky is the limit’ for the sought-after print.
Banksy’s ‘Merrivale Stable’ painting was auctioned for a record-breaking £1 million earlier this year.
The ‘Love Rat’ screenprint, numbered 335/600, is part of The Modern Art and Design Auction.
‘This intriguing piece holds an estimated value of £30,000 – £50,000, but, as one of Banksy’s most sought after and famous designs, the sky truly is the limit,’ Julian Thomson, managing director of Anderson & Garland, said.
‘Following the successful debut of our Urban Art Department earlier this year, and the excellent result reached with the January auction of Banksy’s Merrivale Stable, we’ve truly placed our brand on the map with Urban Art collectors.’
The Modern Art and Design Auction also includes eleven smaller Banksy-related offerings in addition to the screenprint.
These include pieces gathered from the artist’s 2015 temporary art installation in the coastal resort of Weston-super-Mare, which was a parody of Disneyland.
Banksy’s identity has never been proven, with detractors claiming that his work should be classified as vandalism, despite its superb execution.
He was once commissioned by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie to create a mural for their private gallery at their villa in the south of France.
The artist notably sold his ‘Girl With Balloon’ in London in 2018, but it was partially destroyed shortly after the auction ended.
The bottom half of the canvas was shredded in a concealed shredder hidden in the enormous Victorian-style frame, leaving only a single red balloon on a white background in the frame.
After the shredding, the artwork was renamed Love Is In The Bin and sold for £1.1 million at the original auction.
However, when it was auctioned at Sotheby’s last year, it fetched £18.6 million, a new high for the artist at auction.