Banksy.
(British, b. 1974)
Di-Faced Tenner, 10 GBP Note.
2004.
Double-sided offset lithograph printed in colors on wove paper.
Printed by Pictures on Walls, London, the full sheet printed to the edges.
Tenner is 3"h x 5 5/8"w.
Archival double-sided frame with UV plexiglass is 10 5/8"w x 8"h.
Framed by ROOQ Fine Art Framing, NY.
Hand-signed letter of provenance from Banksy's original agent, Steve Lazarides.
Matching holographic serial number from Bottleneck Gallery on the frame back and letter.
Excellent condition.
Provenance: Personal Collection of Steve Lazarides, London, England.
Bottleneck Gallery, Brooklyn, NY.
The Mike Dale Collection.
Est. $5,000-$8,000.
Ship: $35

Arguably the most famous and irreverent street artist at work today, Banksy has raised political satire, bawdy wit, uncommon sense, and the element of surprise to whole new levels with his thought-provoking creations. A prankster at heart, Banksy has illicitly hung his own work in the esteemed Louvre and the Museum of Modern Art. In a 2018 auction at Sotheby's London, as soon as the gavel went down on Banksy's "Girl with Balloon" for a then-record price of $1.4 million, the audience, and Sotheby's, were shocked when the painting began to self-destruct as it lowered itself more than half way through a shredder built into its frame, installed by Banksy in the eventuality that the painting should ever come up for auction. A statement on the transitory nature of art, the undeterred new buyer went through with the purchase. Three years later, the same shredded painting, now titled "Love is in the Bin," sold uneventfully, in the same room of the same auction house, for $25.4 million.

One of the earliest and most famous Banksy ruses involved money, lots and lots of money. At least 100,000 Di-Faced Tenners were printed by Banksy in August of 2004, a total of 1 million GBP in fake currency."Di-Faced"was a play on the term "defaced,"since Banksy's currency featured a portrait of the late Princess Diana replacing that of Queen Elizabeth II. Instead of "Bank of England"the note reads "Banksy of England." Under that banner, Banksy added the inscription "I Promise To Pay The Bearer On Demand The Ultimate Price," a comment on Princess Diana's estrangement from the royal family and the hounding by the press which contributed to her tragic death. The reverse of the bill is largely unchanged featuring an image of Charles Darwin, but Banksy put "Trust No One" in the space normally reserved for Darwin's signature. Banksy's notes are printed with inks on paper that are virtually identical to those used on official UK-issued currency.

Before Di-Faced Tenners became desirable art objects, they were props used in multiple public art stunts. Banksy "spilled" a briefcase full of the fake Tenners at the Liverpool tube station in London during rush hour. He then went to the Notting Hill Carnival and Reading Festival and handed them out to the crowd. As Banksy recalled, people failed to notice the bills were counterfeit and began spending them on beers, and even after they realized the bills were fake, some attempted to use them at the festival and elsewhere anyway. Later that year, an unknown amount of Tenners were also released at the exhibition preview of Santa's Ghetto, held at Lazarides Gallery in London.

A few years later, when Banksy created Pest Control Office to verify, authenticate, and issue Certificates of Authenticity to genuine Banksy works of art, created by his print publisher Pictures on Walls, he decided to incorporated the Di-Faced Tenner bills into the certificate of authenticity itself. Pest Control rips a bill in half, writes the same set of numbers on each half, staples one half to the Certificate of Authenticity and retains the other half for their records to help verify the provenance of the work.

The Banksy Di-Faced Tenner, 10 GBP Note offered here is from the personal collection of Steve Lazarides.Lazarides first met Banksy in 1997 when he was given the assignment of photographing the street artist. Shortly thereafter he became Banksy's art agent and remained in that capacity for about 10 years until 2008. Lazarides had a front row seat for the creation and distribution of the Di-Faced Tenners, and was instrumental in bringing Banksy's art into the public spotlight.The Tenner offered here was acquired directly from Lazarides by Bottleneck Gallery in Brooklyn, NY.Bottleneck Gallery arranged for the Tenners to be matted and framed in a double sided frame with Japanese hinges so that both sides of the Tenner are visible, with framing by ROOQ Fine Art Framing in NYC.

Unfortunately, because the Di-Faced Tenner is one of Banksy's most popular, widely circulated, and highly collected images, it is often counterfeited.Methods of identifying counterfeits have been widely debated, and provenance is the only sure-fire way to truly authenticate a genuine Tenner.The Tenner offered here comes with a hand-signed letter of provenance from Steve Lazarides himself, guaranteeing its authenticity. The letter is individually hand-signed by him. In addition, Bottleneck Gallery has attached matching holographic serial numbers to the rear of the Tenner's frame and to the letter of authenticity from Lazarides.

This Banksy Di-Faced Tenner, 10 GBP Note also passes the eye test.Genuine Tenners were produced using traditional offset lithography, using CMYK colors. Each of these colors, C. cyan), M. magenta), Y. yellow) and K. black) would have had its own plate and would have been printed separately. When done correctly, the overprinted dots form regular patterns, called rosettes, which look like square/octagon shaped dots. These dots cannot be copied even with a high-resolution scanner. A closeup of the tenner offered here, using a magnifying glass or jeweler's loop, reveals its clear and sharp rosette pattern. An authentic Tenner must and will have this clear rosette pattern, which cannot be reproduced by fake photocopies.