BANKSY (British Street Artist, b. 1974) ‘Mali Girl’ (Timbuktu, 2009) Stencil, freehand, spraypaint and acrylic on a concrete block wall Size: 117 x 123 cm (46 x 48.43 in) Estimate : 325,000 - 375,000 euro CONDITION: Excellent and Authentic (Please refer to department for Condition report) DESCRIPTION: - This three colour piece depicts a young girl in a classically patterned knee length dress, sitting on the ground with her legs outstretched. Her left hand is in her lap and her right is raised in the air with the palm of her hand upturned, into which the feathers from a pineapple coloured, cartoon style bird are falling. A small circular hole in the wall has been used to represent the bird’s head, whilst its beak, legs, wings and body are delineated by a series of simple, black acrylic lines. PROVENANCE: - In January 2009, Banksy set off on another impromptu and covert trip, on this occasion to the somewhat mythical destination of Timbuktu. Arriving prior to the country descending into Civil War, he produced six carefully observed works which were regrettably later destroyed, with the exception of ‘Mali Girl’, which was prudently saved by the current owner. The pieces were then recreated in June of the same year, at his critically acclaimed exhibition ‘Banksy versus Bristol Museum’, where he featured sketches and studies from his Timbuktu project, which he showed alongside a vast portfolio of his other stencils, sculptures, paintings, mixed media works and photographs. Unlike many other works in his street oeuvre, ‘Mali Girl’ is unique not just as a Timbuktu survivor, but is also rare for its simple innocence, possessing little of the artist’s trademark satire and irreverence seen elsewhere in his work, including in Mali, where amongst the works lost, was a piece depicting Peaches Geldof begging. It is an extremely important for these reasons, capturing a unique moment in Banksy’s stellar career and in his very limited time on the continent of Africa. It bears testament to the huge attritional losses seen in Banksy’s street portfolio over the last 25 years and the immense cultural value the surviving works possess. NOTE: - The most well known of the six works Banksy created in the city of Timbuktu were ‘Washing Zebra Stripes’, ‘Mali Girl' and ‘Buffalo Hunt’ and the lesser known were ‘No Clean Water Left' (x2) and ‘Peaches Geldof Please Give Generously’. Of all the Timbuktu works only ‘Mali Girl’ survived, the rest falling foul to vandalism, inclement weather and the Civil War between the Islamic Tuareg rebels of the MNLA and Ansar Dine. It was carefully removed from its original siting by the existing owner, who oversaw its framing, cleaning and modest restoration back to its original condition. (See Hessink’s Catalogue Raisonné of Banksy’s Street Art Work No. 794)