The Wikicollecting Top 10 Most Expensive Banksy Artworks ever sold Genius, art terrorist or plagarist? Banksy could easily be described as all three, but the value of his work continues to grow. Wikicollecting lists the 10 most expensive sales of his work to date.
News-Antique.com - Sep 05,2011 - 10) David - £204,500
Banksy’s first tribute to Michelangelo’s famous statue of David came in the form of a five-foot fibreglass sculpture wearing a bomb disposal jacket. It was sold in October 2007 at a Sotheby’s auction in London for a price of £204,500.
He later created a second version for his 2009 exhibition at Bristol Museum, wearing a suicide bomber’s vest and a scarf around its face.
9) Portobello Road mural - £208,100
A Banksy mural painted on a wall on London’s Portobello Road was sold in an eBay auction in 2007. The mural featured a stencil of a traditional painter adding the finishing touches to a pink tag of Banksy’s name.
It sold for a final price of £208,100, under the condition that the buyer would also pay to have the external wall removed (and presumably replaced).
8) Laugh Now - £228,000
In 2002 the Brighton nightclub The Ocean Rooms commissioned Banksy to create a mural for their club. The resulting work, featuring a series of monkeys wearing sandwich boards which read “Laugh now, but one day we’ll be in charge”, measured six metres in length and covered an entire wall.
The mural, which was created and displayed on three boards, was sold in February 2008 during a Bonhams auction for a price of £228,000.
7) Ruined Landscape - $385,000
Banksy contributed several of his works to a RED charity auction held at Sotheby's in New York in February 2008.
The first of these was ‘Ruined Landscape’, featuring a traditional English landscape painting in a gilt frame, tagged with a large stencil which reads “This is not a photo opportunity”.
The work was sold for a price of $385,000.
6) Queen Victoria - £277,250
In an image which unsurprisingly angered the Daily Mail in 2008, Banksy’s work ‘Queen Victoria’ depicts the monarch in a lesbian clinch with a prostitute. Several versions of the work have been sold, including a copy bought by the singer Christina Aguilera for £25,000.
The most expensive version ever sold appeared at auctionin October 2008 at Sotheby’s in London. It sold for a price of £277,250.
5) Space Girl and Bird - £288,000
In April 2007 the record price for a Banksy work was broken during a Bonhams auction in London. The work was ‘Space Girl and Bird’, featuring a small girl dressed in a Parka jacket and a deep-sea diving helmet holding a small yellow bird.
The image had originally been commissioned as part of the cover artwork for the 2003 Blur album ‘Think Tank’, and sold for a then-record price of £288,000.
4) The Rude Lord - £322,900
Banksy’s style of ‘corrupting’ existing traditional paintings brought him another record sale in October 2007, at a Sotheby’s sale in London.
His work ‘The Rude Lord’ features a version of a 1776 portrait by the English painter Thomas Beach, altered to include a hand casually raising a middle digit. It sold for a price of £322,900.
