A print of Banksy’s Toxic Mary will be auctioned by Duggleby Stephenson of York from 11am in York Auction Centre in Murton Lane, Murton, with viewing taking place at its showroom on site all this week.
The work is included for sale in a modern art lot which includes three Bloomsbury Group paintings, a bronze from Ju Ming and a watercolour from Qi Baishi – one of the most famous Chinese artists of the 20th century, according to an auction house spokesperson.
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Although now world-famous for his distinctive stencilled graffiti, Banksy’s true identity remains a secret, despite having emerged around Bristol in the early 1990s.
York is not known to have any Banksy originals in its own streets, but Kingston-upon-Hull received a mural by the reclusive artist on a road bridge in 2018.
Coralie Thompson, art specialist at Duggleby Stephenson said: “The Toxic Mary image is an early Banksy work that was first seen at an exhibition staged in a London warehouse in 2003.
“Shortly afterwards limited edition prints were produced, 600 of which were simply numbered and another 150 that were signed.
“Back then you could have picked up one of the unsigned prints for just £74-£99 and a signed version for £150.
“It was a picture that one critic described as ‘poignant and insightful’ but wrote off as something that ‘no-one wants to buy – absolutely nobody’.”
“He was wrong.
“The limited editions sold out and today they are ultra-collectable.
“The unsigned prints usually sell for more than ten thousand pounds at auction – and the signed versions can make three times that amount.”
A spokesperson for Duggleby Stephenson said Toxic Mary is “the secretive street artist’s re-imagination of the classic Madonna and child paintings of the Renaissance – a version in which Mary is feeding the infant Jesus with a bottle bearing a skull and crossbones.”
In April a signed print of Toxic Mary sold for £35,280 at Christie’s, and the pre-sale estimate at Duggleby Stephenson print number 429 / 600 from the unsigned prints is between £8,000 and £12,000.