Two men have been charged with stealing a version of Banksy’s famed work, Girl with Balloon, from Grove Gallery on New Cavendish Street in London on Sunday.
Larry Fraser, 47, Beckton, and James Love, 53, of North Stifford, appeared at Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court 12 September. The pair are set to appear at Kingston Crown Court on 9 October.
According to Sky News, the print—signed and part of an edition of 160—was stolen from the Grove Gallery, and was valued at £270,000. CCTV footage of the robbery shows a masked figure smashing the glass doors of the locked gallery and removing the work from the wall.
The piece has since been recovered following an investigation by the Metropolitan Police’s Flying Squad. Banksy’s paintings are often removed or stolen; last month his silhouette of a wolf howling at the moon on a satellite dish in Rye Lane in Peckham, south London, was taken down by two men in balaclavas.
In 2018 another copy of Girl with Balloon was shredded during a live auction at Sotheby’s London after a mechanism concealed within the painting’s frame was activated as the winning bid hammered down. After a week of negotiation with Sotheby’s, the artist’s studio Pest Control renamed the half-shredded canvas Love is in the Bin, issuing a new certificate of authenticity.
