This piece is believed to a Banksy made during his blast of Paris June 2018. As early as June 18th. It lasted less than 20 hours on the street where...
This piece is believed to a Banksy made during his blast of Paris June 2018. As early as June 18th. It lasted less than 20 hours on the street where it was hidden behind a trash container on a private building. Excact location is in hand. And a photo where the space after the cut plaster can be seen. Later trimmed. Listed as attributed to.
The first owner hoped for Banksy to post a photo of the Rat on his Instagram account but that never happened. Probably because the work was removed almost instantly, and the artist did not wish to bring formal "authentication" to it. Please note this is guessing.
We have done a lot of research and also compared it to the “Champagne Rat” made at Chez Marianne, 2 Rue des Hospitalières Saint-Gervais (4th district). The face matches. So does the hands. Same goes with the 1968 rat. See pics. The theme matches. The date matches. The location matches, the stencil matches. And we have never before seen a Banksy Rat in a life vest.
The piece is accompanied by several photos. And a 3 pages handwritten letter from the first owner telling his story on how he retrived the work and how he later got photos of the original position with the matching piece of plaster cut out.
Streetart News were the first to report on the larger pieces made in Paris. They did that on July 22nd. The popular press reported on July 28th. This piece was made in the night between the 18th and 19th of July 2018.
Later in 2019 Banksy launched his "Gross Domestic Product" store. One of the items was a orange life vest that was turned into a welcome mat. See some of the last photos.