Share on twitter
Share on facebook
Share on pinterest
Share on email

Queen Victoria, 2002

BY

BANKSY
Queen Victoria, 2002
Oil on canvas in original artist’s frame
Canvas: 91.5 x 91.5 cm (36×36 inches)
Overall: 113.5 x 112 cm (44 3/4 x 44 inches)
Stencil signature, lower right

Provenance
Lazarides Gallery, London
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Exhibited
London, Shoreditch Dragon Bar, Santa’s Ghetto, 2002

Auction History
Sotheby’s London: 17 October 2008
Estimated: GBP 250,000 – 350,000
Price realized: GBP 277,250 / USD 479,965

“Show your friends and colleagues your admiration for Britain’s greatest ever living monarch with this deluxe lesbian watersports fetish tableaux.”

In Queen Victoria, Banksy delivers one of his most provocative visual coups: the emblem of British imperialism and conservative virtue reimagined in a dominatrix role, seated confidently atop another woman. With stark black-and-white stenciling set against a deep red background, the Queen, complete with her favorite accessories (crown and scepter), exudes a regal dominance, though now in a radically unorthodox posture.
Banksy, Existencilism, May 2002
Originally appearing on a London wall in 2003, this image of a lesbian Queen Victoria was an instant scandal and instant icon. Banksy flips the script on Victorian morality, queering the monarch to both mock repression and reclaim power. It is a clear direct hit at the hypocrisy of past and present institutions that have historically policed sexuality while cloaked in authority and tradition.

The strength of this artwork lies in the collision of opposites: royalty and erotica, authority and subversion, public reverence and private rebellion. By placing a symbol of empire in a sexualized, taboo-breaking pose, Banksy not only ridicules imperial pretension but also opens a space for alternate histories: ones where desire and identity are freed from the long shadow of the Crown.

Gallery

More like this

wpChatIcon
wpChatIcon