Devolved Parliament

Devolved Parliament is a monumental oil painting by Banksy that reimagines the interior of the British House of Commons with chimpanzees occupying every seat on the green leather benches. Originally exhibited under the title Question Time at the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery in 2009, the work uses the grandeur of parliamentary architecture — the ornate Gothic ceiling, the Speaker's chair, the dispatch boxes — to frame a biting satire on political dysfunction. At over four meters wide, the sheer scale of the painting gives it the gravity of a history painting, even as its subject matter undermines every pretension of institutional authority.

Banksy reworked the composition before it reappeared in Bristol in March 2019, adding small details including a banana and modified lamps. Later that year, the painting shattered the artist's auction record when it sold for £9.9 million at Sotheby's in London, a result that itself became a kind of commentary on the art market. The sale coincided with a period of intense parliamentary chaos over Brexit, lending the image a renewed and almost prophetic relevance that Banksy acknowledged with a characteristic Instagram post: "Record price for a Banksy painting set at auction tonight. Shame I didn't still own it."