A huge mural of a rat painted by Banksy on the side of the former White House pub in Liverpool has been transported to the Netherlands for auction.

The ‘White House Rat’ has been delivered to Hessink’s International Fine Art Auctioneers this week, and will sell alongside other works by Banksy in the coming weeks by means of a public auction.

According to Hessink’s, the mural is the largest of Banksy’s public artworks to have come to market and was “nonchalantly painted in broad daylight” in Liverpool’s Chinatown “at a time when the artist’s modest public profile afforded him the anonymity that only the hours of darkness would later come to offer him”.

Originally unveiled as part of the Liverpool Biennial in 2004, the work spanned nearly 200 square meters of the derelict Grade II-listed Georgian building on the corner of Duke Street and Berry Street in Liverpool city centre.

Main Image: © willposh/Flickr

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