Urban Art Association

Banksy 'Glory' original alt version?, by flat_line on Sept 13, 2020 15:02:13 GMT 1, Hi all,

Thought I’d share a recent find with you and, as the most pedantic bunch of Banksy goons, get your opinion! So, for starters this came from ebay. Yes I know, groan, not another etc etc, but hear me out. I bought this for £200 just because it seemed interesting and slightly odd. The seller claimed it was ‘found’ by some bins in East London several years ago.


So, many of you will know the original of this Banksy piece, Glory. Sold last by Christie’s in 2013 for a mere £70,875. Not his best work IMO, but hey, interesting nonetheless. So, the large size version is here (https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2013/CKS/2013_CKS_01135_0381_000(banksy_glory011356).jpg) if you care to compare, however I have done so below. Firstly, here’s the one I bought.



Ok, so the reason that this seemed interesting is, firstly, why someone would bother to fake it? Everyone with access to a computer and half a brain can figure out it was sold by a decent auction house, and is now either hanging on the wall of a lovely house or wrapped up and hidden in a bank vault somewhere. So, why bother? You’re never going to fool someone into spending a lot on it, because they’ll do some research (most likely). So, to go to all the trouble of copying it, finding exactly the same frame and faking it in general just seems a bit of a low value effort.

Secondly, the version I have is different to the original, so again, if you were going to fake it, why make it different? Here are some comparison images between the original and mine. I guess one reason is that someone like me might buy it, think it was some kind of pre-production effort and write about it on an urban art forum, but again for £200 it seems an awful lot of work. There are plenty more differences if you look, well, not even that closely. Lots of bits on mine where it looks like the paint has been brushed and filled in on top.



You might think that the differences are just someone embellishing a print with extras, and it certainly looks like that in places, but my version actually has parts (such as the hook of the G and the intersection of the R) where you can see the print below, whereas on the original you cant. This would suggest that its not done over the top of a copy, as you wouldn’t be able to see those parts. It’s possible that someone found the original Spitfire print, not hard, and did it from scratch, but to get it so similar is pretty impressive, no? I’ve taken my version out of the frame to examine more closely, and it’s hard to tell whether it’s paint or print, but looks in places definitely like paint.



There are also some scratches bottom centre and right that appear on the original and not on mine, which would again suggest it’s not a copy, see below




The print itself is a fairly flimsy affair stuck onto some cardboard, which kind of suits Banksy’s style to my mind, but that’s just conjecture. The backing board is signed with what looks to me a pretty decent signature for the date, nice and fluid etc, plus the shadowed remnants of some other items having been sprayed on there. That’s nice, but if it’s just a pre-production version, or a test, or whatever, why sign it?





As we all know, without a COA it’s not a real piece, and even if this is real I doubt PC would certify it, so as not to detract from the original, but hey, seemed like an odd piece that didn’t have any immediate explanation as to its existence, so worth a punt for a few hundred £. Basically, it’s not as good as the original, but it’s both good enough to be maybe 95% similar yet different. Be interested to hear everyone else’s thoughts. Ta

Hi all,

Thought I’d share a recent find with you and, as the most pedantic bunch of Banksy goons, get your opinion! So, for starters this came from ebay. Yes I know, groan, not another etc etc, but hear me out. I bought this for £200 just because it seemed interesting and slightly odd. The seller claimed it was ‘found’ by some bins in East London several years ago.


So, many of you will know the original of this Banksy piece, Glory. Sold last by Christie’s in 2013 for a mere £70,875. Not his best work IMO, but hey, interesting nonetheless. So, the large size version is here (https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2013/CKS/2013_CKS_01135_0381_000(banksy_glory011356).jpg) if you care to compare, however I have done so below. Firstly, here’s the one I bought.



Ok, so the reason that this seemed interesting is, firstly, why someone would bother to fake it? Everyone with access to a computer and half a brain can figure out it was sold by a decent auction house, and is now either hanging on the wall of a lovely house or wrapped up and hidden in a bank vault somewhere. So, why bother? You’re never going to fool someone into spending a lot on it, because they’ll do some research (most likely). So, to go to all the trouble of copying it, finding exactly the same frame and faking it in general just seems a bit of a low value effort.

Secondly, the version I have is different to the original, so again, if you were going to fake it, why make it different? Here are some comparison images between the original and mine. I guess one reason is that someone like me might buy it, think it was some kind of pre-production effort and write about it on an urban art forum, but again for £200 it seems an awful lot of work. There are plenty more differences if you look, well, not even that closely. Lots of bits on mine where it looks like the paint has been brushed and filled in on top.



You might think that the differences are just someone embellishing a print with extras, and it certainly looks like that in places, but my version actually has parts (such as the hook of the G and the intersection of the R) where you can see the print below, whereas on the original you cant. This would suggest that its not done over the top of a copy, as you wouldn’t be able to see those parts. It’s possible that someone found the original Spitfire print, not hard, and did it from scratch, but to get it so similar is pretty impressive, no? I’ve taken my version out of the frame to examine more closely, and it’s hard to tell whether it’s paint or print, but looks in places definitely like paint.



There are also some scratches bottom centre and right that appear on the original and not on mine, which would again suggest it’s not a copy, see below




The print itself is a fairly flimsy affair stuck onto some cardboard, which kind of suits Banksy’s style to my mind, but that’s just conjecture. The backing board is signed with what looks to me a pretty decent signature for the date, nice and fluid etc, plus the shadowed remnants of some other items having been sprayed on there. That’s nice, but if it’s just a pre-production version, or a test, or whatever, why sign it?





As we all know, without a COA it’s not a real piece, and even if this is real I doubt PC would certify it, so as not to detract from the original, but hey, seemed like an odd piece that didn’t have any immediate explanation as to its existence, so worth a punt for a few hundred £. Basically, it’s not as good as the original, but it’s both good enough to be maybe 95% similar yet different. Be interested to hear everyone else’s thoughts. Ta