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# Banksy Painting Sells for $10M, Surpassing Its High Estimate
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/banksy-painting-sells-for-10m-doubling-its-high-estimate/
- Published: 2020-10-22T18:21:32.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:42:39.000Z
- Description: Banksy’s “Show Me The Monet” (2005), a riff on Monet’s paintings of his Japanese bridge in Giverny, has achieved the second-highest price ever paid for a work by the street artist.
- Author: Valentina Di Liscia
- Tags: News, Auctions, Banksy, London, Sotheby's, UK, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 09:08 (2019, 2020, part 3)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/lot-105-banksy-show-me-the-monet-2005-est--3-5million-scaled-e1603387710477.jpg)

A painting by the anonymous British street artist Banksy fetched £7.6 million (\~$9.8 million) at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction in London last night. Surpassing its pre-sale estimate of £3 million (\~$3.9 million) to £5 million (\~$6.5 million), it is the second-highest price ever paid for a work by the artist.

In “[Show Me The Monet](https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2020/contemporary-art-evening-auction-2/banksy-show-me-the-monet?ref=hyperallergic.com)” (2005), Banksy riffs on Claude Monet’s [iconic paintings](https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/monet-the-japanese-footbridge.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) of a Japanese-style wooden footbridge in his water lily garden in Giverny. By littering the tranquil Impressionist scene with half-submerged shopping carts and a bright orange traffic cone, he offers a biting critique of consumerism, excess, and environmental waste.

The work was included in one of Banksy’s earliest gallery exhibitions, [*Crude Oils: A Gallery of Re-mixed Masterpieces, Vandalism and Vermin*](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/rats-to-the-arts-establishment-319534.html?ref=hyperallergic.com)*,* held at 100 Westbourne Grove in London in 2005\. It was among 22 hand-painted canvases that reworked and subverted traditional modern masterpieces, including a painting of a vase filled with dead sunflowers based on one of Vincent Van Gogh’s [most recognizable images](https://www.google.com/search?q=van+gogh+sunflowers&oq=Van+Gogh+sunflowers&aqs=chrome.0.0i457j0l7.2374j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&ref=hyperallergic.com) and a portrait of the model Kate Moss based on Andy Warhol’s “[Marilyn Monroe](https://www.moma.org/collection/works/61240?ref=hyperallergic.com)” series.

Notably, the show also included 164 live rats, a living representation of one of Banksy’s recurring motifs. Early on in his career, he spray-painted the rodents onto London subway cars and murals as a form of social commentary, inspired by the [French graffiti artist Blek le Rat](https://people.southwestern.edu/~bednarb/su%5FnetWorks/projects/jle/rat.html?ref=hyperallergic.com); they [continue to feature prominently](https://hyperallergic.com/banksy-quarantine/) in his works.

“Fortunately, no rats will feature in the Sotheby’s display,” said the auction house’s [press release](https://www.sothebys.com/en/press/show-me-the-monet?ref=hyperallergic.com).

Last October, Sotheby’s [sold](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/arts/design/banksy-devolved-parliament-auction.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) Banksy’s “Devolved Parliament” (2009), an oil on canvas depicting Britain’s House of Commons overrun by chimpanzees, for £9.9 million with fees (\~$12.1 million), setting an auction high for the artist.