The elaborate prank by Banksy has resulted in his artwork ‘doubling in value’ despite having been shredded to pieces.

The unknown artist shocked a Sotherby’s auction house when his most famed piece self-destructed after being sold for an eye-watering amount of money. The stencil spray painting, one of Banksy’s best-known pieces of work ‘Girl With Balloon’, was auctioned in London and sold for £1million. However, almost instantly after it was sold, the framed work began to shred itself in front of the crowd.

Now Joey Syer, the co-founder of an art broker site, told The Evening Standard: “Today said that the shredded artwork could now have doubled in value. Girl with Balloon is one of the most iconic images of recent times. It’s seen some of the sharpest price increases over previous years with signed/unsigned prints and canvass showing an average of +20% yoy. Prices now are regularly exceeding £115,000 for signed authenticated prints,” he said.

“The auction result will only propel this further and given the media attention this stunt has received, the lucky buyer would see a great return on the £1.02m they paid last night, this is now part of Art History in its shredded state and we’d estimate Banksy has added at a minimum 50% to its value, possibly as high as being worth £2m+.”

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“It appears we just got Banksy-ed,” said Alex Branczik, head of contemporary art, Europe at the time of the event. “He is arguably the greatest British street artist, and tonight we saw a little piece of Banksy genius.” Branczik maintained that Sotheby’s was “not in on the ruse.”

“We are busy figuring out what this means in an auction context,” Branczik added. “The shredding is now part of the integral artwork. We have not experienced a situation where a painting has spontaneously shredded, upon achieving a record for the artist.”

Now, Banksy has released a video explaining how he rigged the frame: