‘Monkey Queen’ with only 150 points… I requested confirmation of the authenticity, but received a ‘silent response’
Banksy, an unidentified artist whose face and real name are not revealed, is embroiled in a legal battle and is likely to have his identity revealed. This is because art collectors sued Banksy after he refused to authenticate the piece.
According to the British Guardian on the 9th (local time), Pest Control, the agency of British graffiti artist Banksy, was sued by two art collectors for refusing to certify the work requested.
Collectors Nikki Katz and Ray House purchased Banksy’s work ‘The Monkey Queen (2003)’ from an art collector for about 30,000 pounds (about 51 million won).
‘The Monkey Queen’ is a print reminiscent of the late Queen Elizabeth II, and there are only 150 pieces of ‘The Monkey Queen’ signed by Banksy. The series consists of 600 unsigned works, a total of 750 works. Banksy is known to only sign some of his works.
Katz and House, who filed the lawsuit, purchased the work in 2020, but there was no documentation explaining the work’s history. Accordingly, the two people explained that they sent the work to Pest Control to confirm its authenticity, but there has been no response so far.
Katz said, “Please just confirm whether it is genuine or not,” and added, “I am very disappointed in Banksy.”
“Our certification process is very thorough and sometimes takes a long time,” Pest Control said. “We have issued thousands of certificates of authenticity to date.”
According to The Times in the UK on the 3rd, up to 700 applications for authenticity certification are received by Pest Control every month. This is because counterfeit products are being sold on online platforms such as eBay, pretending to be genuine.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.