“Aachoo!!” Banksy captioned an Instagram photo of the artwork.
Some fans interpreted it as a reference to the coronavirus pandemic. Many responded to the artist’s social media post with two words: “Bless you.”
The piece was discovered Thursday on the side of a house in the Totterdown neighborhood. A protective covering has now been placed over the piece to safeguard it from vandalism, the local news outlet Bristol24/7 reported.
In February, Banksy’s Valentine’s Day installation in the Bristol neighborhood of Barton Hill was defaced within 48 hours.
It’s unclear whether Banksy’s latest piece is a direct commentary on the COVID-19 crisis that’s upended the world over the last year, though the artist has riffed on the pandemic multiple times already.
“My wife hates it when I work from home,” he captioned the photo of a bathroom installation in April, when the United Kingdom was midway through its first national lockdown.
In May, Banksy hailed health care workers on the front lines of the pandemic with this “Game Changer” piece that he donated to charities assisting the United Kingdom’s National Health Service:
And he disinfected the London Underground transit system ― in his own way ― with this video in July: