A bicycle missing one wheel corresponding to a new Bansky mural in Nottingham, England, has disappeared from its position near the artwork. The painting depicts a girl hula-hooping with a tire, and, according to a report by the National, the accompanying bike had been padlocked to lamppost next to the mural.
Nottingham’s city council has said that that the bike was not stolen, but rather removed from its location by the owners of the wall on which the artwork is painted. The National reports that a Nottingham resident has replaced the original bicycle with another one.
The mural first appeared in October, and some say that it serves as a nod to Nottingham’s storied bike manufacturer, Raleigh. Louise Harrison, a resident of Nottingham, told the National that the elusive artist “has given us a gift when we were at a low with increasing [Covid-19] infection rates.”
The Nottingham mural is not the only work Banksy has debuted this year. In April, the artist situated his rat stencils throughout a bathroom, and in June Bansky released a work addressing systemic racism and police brutality. Banksy also funded and painted a rescue boat for transporting refugees across the Mediterranean Sea.
Bansky has made waves in the market this year, too. The artist’s 2005 painting Show Me the Monet, which alludes to the famed Impressionist’s Giverny scene, sold for $9.8 million at Sotheby’s in October, and the proceeds from the auction house’s sale of Banksy’s triptych Mediterranean Sea View (2017) benefited a hospital in Bethlehem, Palestine.