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Banksy’s latest artwork of a rhino, which looks as though it is mounting a car, was defaced after a few hours of being unveiled.
The artwork, depicting the silhouette of a rhino mounting a silver Nissan Micra with a traffic cone on its bonnet, had appeared on Westmoor Street in Charlton, south east London.
The piece was spray painted by a man wearing a black balaclava, who had an accomplice waiting by the side of the road at around 19.45BST, reported the BBC.
A witness who spoke to the BBC said a “random youth” in a black balaclava “brazenly walked up and defaced the installation with a graffiti tag”.
“The whole incident took place within less than 30 seconds before he disappeared with another male accomplice further down the road.”
Banksy had confirmed the piece as his with an Instagram post – usually how he claims his artwork – on 12 August.
This piece was Banksy’s eighth artwork in his animal-themed collection, with past pieces showing silhouettes of a goat, elephants, monkeys, a wolf, pelicans, a cat and fish, all of which had popped up in various locations across London.
Barriers have been put up around his seventh piece – swimming piranhas painted on a City of London Police sentry box.
A City of London Corporation spokesperson said in a statement to PA: “We’re aware of the works on the City of London police box on Ludgate Hill.
“We are currently working through options to preserve the artwork.”
On Thursday, one of the pieces – a howling wolf on a satellite dish – was stolen by three individuals within hours of Banksy claiming it as his.
Tom Kellow, a Peckham resident, walked down to see the artwork during his lunch break when he saw the thieves.
“I was walking down around 1pm and saw three guys nicking it. They had a ladder. There was one guy on the roof and the other two were watching the ladder,” he told PA news.
“They saw me filming and it got a bit tetchy. One gave me a kick in the side and another tried to throw my phone on the roof.
“Luckily it hit a tree and came back down again. I told a police officer in the area about it.
“It’s a great shame we can’t have nice things and it’s a shame it couldn’t have lasted more than an hour.”
A spokesperson for Banksy told the PA news agency that the artist is neither connected to nor endorses the theft and that they have “no knowledge as to the dish’s current whereabouts”.
The first piece in Banksy’s new animal-themed series, unveiled on Monday last week, appeared near Kew Bridge in south-west London and shows a goat with rocks falling down below it, just above where a CCTV camera is pointed.
On Tuesday, silhouettes of two elephants with their trunks stretched toward each other appeared on the side of a building near Chelsea.
This was followed by a trio of monkeys looking as though they were swinging from underneath a bridge over Brick Lane, which is near a vintage clothing shop in the popular east London market street, not far from Shoreditch High Street.
Friday brought an image of pelicans pinching fish from a London chip shop sign in Walthamstow, east London, and Thursday saw the howling wolf.
The sixth artwork in Cricklewood, north west London, showed the silhouette of a large cat with an upturned nail as it appears to stretch out its body.
