According to the auction house, “five determined collectors” competed for the work nearly nine minutes of the online auction. That was estimated in advance at 3 to 5 million pounds. The final sale price, £ 7.6 million, was the second-highest amount already paid at auction for a Banksy work.
‘Show me the Monet’ dates from 2005. The work shows the idyllic Japanese bridge above a pond with water lilies, which can also be seen in Monet’s painting ‘Bassin aux nymphéas’, but the water is polluted with a shopping cart and a traffic cone. The work is part of a series in which Banksy parodied classic works such as Van Gogh’s sunflowers (with faded flowers) and Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe (replaced by Kate Moss).
In 2019, a record sum of £ 9.9 million was paid for Banksy’s Devolved Parliament at an auction. That is a painting in which British politicians who debate in the House of Commons have been replaced by chimpanzees.
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