In the painting "Crude Oil (Vettriano)" he recreates the Scottish painter Jack Vettriano's famous work "The Singing Butler", which depicts a couple in tailcoats dancing on a windy beach together with a butler and a maid holding umbrellas.
In Banksy's reworked version, he has added two men in protective gear rolling a barrel of toxic waste onto the beach.
The sale takes place just a few days after Vettriano, 73, was found dead in Nice in southern France over the weekend, according to information from his publicist.
Jack Vettriano's original work set a Scottish record when it was sold at auction in 2004 for 744,800 pounds, equivalent to almost 10 million Swedish kronor. It also became Britain's best-selling printed reproduction, surpassing both Monet and van Gogh.
The Banksy painting was sold by American musician and record producer Mark Hoppus, co-founder of the pop-punk band Blink-182. In a statement to Sotheby's, Hoppus says that his family has loved the Banksy painting ever since they bought it, but that he now wants to use part of the proceeds from the sale to buy works from younger, up-and-coming artists.
