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Banksy’s latest artwork of a rhinoceros that looks like it is climbing onto a car was defaced just hours after its unveiling.
The artwork, which shows the silhouette of a rhinoceros climbing onto a silver Nissan Micra with a traffic cone on the bonnet, appeared on Westmoor Street in Charlton, south-east London.
The piece was sprayed by a man wearing a black balaclava who had an accomplice waiting at the side of the road at around 7.45pm CET, the BBC.
A witness who was BBC said a “random youth” wearing a black balaclava “brazenly approached the installation and smeared it with a graffiti tag.”
“The entire incident occurred in less than 30 seconds before he disappeared with another male accomplice further down the street.”
Banksy confirmed the identity of the work in an Instagram post on August 12 – this is how he usually claims to have purchased his artworks.
This work was Banksy’s eighth artwork in his animal-themed collection. Previous works featured the silhouettes of a goat, elephants, monkeys, a wolf, pelicans, a cat and a fish, all of which had appeared in various locations around London.
Barriers have been erected around his seventh work – swimming piranhas painted on a City of London Police guard booth.
A City of London Corporation spokesman said in a statement to PA: “We are aware of the work taking place at the City of London Police Station on Ludgate Hill.
“We are currently examining options for preserving the artwork.”
On Thursday, one of the works – a howling wolf on a satellite dish – was stolen by three people within hours of Banksy claiming it as his own.
Tom Kellow, a resident of Peckham, went down to look at the artwork during his lunch break when he noticed the thieves.
“I went down at about 1pm and saw three guys stealing it. They had a ladder with them. One was on the roof and the other two were guarding the ladder,” he told PA News.
“They saw me filming and things got a bit heated. One kicked me in the side and another tried to throw my phone onto the roof.
“Luckily it hit a tree and fell down again. I told a police officer in the area.
“It’s a great pity that we can’t have nice things, and it’s a pity that it couldn’t last longer than an hour.”
A spokesman for Banksy told the PA news agency that the artist had no connection with or condone the theft and that they had “no knowledge of the current whereabouts of the bowl”.
The first work from Banksy’s new animal series, unveiled on Monday last week, appeared near Kew Bridge in southwest London and shows a goat with stones falling beneath it, directly above where a security camera is pointed at it.
On Tuesday, silhouettes of two elephants with their trunks stretched out towards each other appeared on the side of a building near Chelsea.
This was followed by a trio of monkeys that looked like they were swinging out from under a bridge over Brick Lane. Brick Lane is located near a vintage clothing store on the popular market street in east London, not far from Shoreditch High Street.
On Friday there was an image of pelicans stealing fish from the sign of a “fish shop” in Walthamstow, east London, and on Thursday there was a picture of a howling wolf.
The sixth artwork, in Cricklewood, north-west London, featured the silhouette of a large cat with a nail pointing upwards, appearing to stretch out its body.
