Banksy has long used rats as a form of social commentary.

Recently, they have emerged in both his bathroom (he was working from home) and the London Underground, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While most assumed the return to the vermin in his art was a pointed reference to the spread of the disease, that’s not necessarily the case.

Banksy likes rats because they’re survivors, and, as he put it in 2008:

“If you feel dirty, insignificant or unloved, then rats are a good role model. They exist without permission, they have no respect for the hierarchy of society, and they have sex 50 times a day.”

Regardless of how you do feel about his rats, get your hands on one of his pieces of art and you’re golden.

One of his paintings just sold on auction for a whopping R160 million.

That must have been what a man who recently appeared on Antiques Roadshow was thinking when he showed up with what he claimed was a Banksy original, ripped off a wall.

Here’s Huffington Post, with how he came by the piece:

“It looked loose. Went over, pulled it off basically, a little bit of a tug,” the man told one of the show’s art experts, Rupert Maas.

“I know what it is,” the man added. “It was around 2004, basically trying to get a valuation of it.”

As Maas pointed out, there are ways to authenticate a Banksy on your own, with an authentication service is called ‘Pest Control‘.

This bloke wasn’t able to authenticate the piece, perhaps because he ripped it off a wall, so he decided to try and get the good people on the show to do it for him.

You can probably guess where this is going:

Not his finest hour.

[source:huffpost]