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Love Rat on Palette, 2003

BY

BANKSY
Love Rat on Palette,
2003
Stencil spray-paint on wooden palette
60×50 cm (23 5/8 x 19 1/16 inches)
Stenciled signed “BANKSY” on the side, lower left

Provenance
East London Warehouse, London
Private Collection
Bonhams, London, 16 April 2008, Lot 373
Private Collection, United Kingdom
Phillips, Hong Kong, Selling Exhibition: Banksy Who’s Laughing Now?, Lot 5
Acquired from the above selling exhibition by the present owner

Exhibited
London, East London Warehouse, Turf War, July 2003

 

Auction History

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 28 April 2022
Estimated: HKD 6,000,000 – 9,000,000
Price realized: HKD 6,300,000 / USD 802,900

Banksy 班克斯 | Love Rat on palette 愛鼠木板 | Contemporary Day Auction | 2022 | Sotheby’s

Bonhams London: 16 April 2008
GBP 36,000 / USD 47,413

A true mascot of Banksy’s early street interventions, Love Rat turns the most reviled of urban pests into an unlikely poet of passion. Stenciled in stark black on raw wooden planks, the rat, sometimes seen as Banksy’s sly alter ego, clutches a lipstick like a weapon, having just graffitied a bleeding red heart. The grain of the wood, complete with screws and knots, emphasizes the work’s ephemeral, guerrilla origins, yet the image is disarmingly tender.


The rat, often a symbol of disease or decay, becomes here a messenger of love—albeit one smeared, urgent, and imperfect. The heart drips like fresh blood or wet paint, suggesting both violence and vulnerability. As always with Banksy, the joke cuts deep: affection in a brutal world is a radical act. Love Rat doesn’t just survive the city—it paints over it.

Gallery

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