Banksy MPs as chimpanzees painting up for auction Published duration 16 September 2019 Related Topics Brexit

image copyright Sotheby's image caption The painting is nearly four metres (13ft) wide and is the largest known canvas by Banksy

A painting by Banksy showing the House of Commons packed with chimpanzees is to be auctioned.

Devolved Parliament was painted by the anonymous Bristol artist in 2009 and could fetch more than £1.5m, according to auctioneer Sotheby's.

"Regardless of where you sit in the Brexit debate, there's no doubt that this work is more pertinent now than it has ever been," Sotheby's said.

It goes on show on 28 September before its sale in London on 3 October.

Alex Branczik, from Sotheby's, said Banksy "confronted the burning issues of the day".

He said the artist "distils society's most complicated political situations into just one, deceptively simple image that is readily shareable in our social media age".

Banksy created Devolved Parliament for the takeover of Bristol Museum in 2009, which attracted more than 300,000 visitors and was said to be one of the most visited exhibitions in the world that year.

The painting's anonymous owner lent it to the museum earlier this year to mark both the exhibition's 10th anniversary and Britain's original planned exit from the EU on 29 March.

The auction will take place one year after Banksy himself intervened in a Sotheby's auction, when his artwork Girl with Balloon self-destructed as the gavel came down to become the newly titled Love is in the Bin.