Rare Banksy painting sells for $5.5 million at London sale

A rare painting by street artist Banksy which reimagines Jack Vettriano's famous "The Singing Butler" sold for nearly $5.5 million at an auction in London, Sotheby's said recently.

- Helen Rowe

The sale of Banksy's "Crude Oil (Vettriano)" came a day after the death of Scottish painter Vettriano, 73, was announced.

Vettriano's "Singing Butler" depicts a couple in evening dress dancing on a windswept beach accompanied by a butler and a maid holding umbrellas. It set a Scottish record when it was sold at auction in 2004 for a little over $950,000.

It became the UK's best-selling print reproduction, outselling Monet and Van Gogh and inspiring Banksy to subvert its romantic narrative for his own painting.

In "Crude Oil (Vettriano)", which is sometimes called "Toxic beach," Banksy reworks the scene to add a sinking oil liner and two men in hazmat suits wheeling a barrel of toxic waste onto the beach.

The painting was sold at Sotheby's by US musician and record producer Mark Hoppus, co-founder of pop-punk band Blink-182.