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A thrift-store painting is now worth well over half a million dollars, thanks to the imprimatur of Banksy. “The Banality of the Banality of Evil,” a landscape that he doctored by adding a Nazi military figure, his own signature and a certificate of authenticity, sold for $615,000 in a charity auction that ended on Thursday evening. The money was to benefit Housing Works, which anonymously received the painting in its Gramercy shop and put it up for sale online on Tuesday. The auction attracted 138 bids, from a minimum starting offer of $74,000, with the price jumping by several hundred thousand dollars in the final moments.

Banksy’s monthlong residency around New York drew fans and detractors alike, and opportunists who sought to cash in when one of his stencils graced their buildings, as well as those who opted to preserve them. What appeared to be his final piece, a series of silver, Warhol-esque balloons spelling out “Banksy” in bubble letters on the side of a building in Queens, was quickly destroyed on Thursday.

But the charity sale may help to assuage any New Yorkers who were miffed by his op-ed article denouncing the design of One World Trade Center. And Banksy ended with a plea for another New York institution, the street art mecca 5 Pointz, in Queens, which is slated to be destroyed in November. “Thanks for your patience,” he wrote on his website. “It’s been fun. Save 5pointz. Bye.”