Because I’m Worthlessshows a rat painted in Banksy’s iconic black-and-white stencilled style. The rat is standing up on two feet, like a human, and is holding up a placard reading ‘‘Because I’m Worthless’’ in bright red or pink writing. The only splash of colour in the composition is a pun of the L’Oreal tagline: ‘‘Because I’m Worth it.’’ It is part of the Placard Rat series, a trilogy of three screen prints released in 2004 featuring the artist's iconic rat holding up a placard bearing “Because I’m Worthless.”

The other two screen prints of Placard Rat are “Get Out While You Can” and “Welcome to Hell.”

There were 75 signed screen prints and 175 unsigned prints each with red and pink colorways.

A delicious send-up of the nauseating, ubiquitous, vapid L’Oréal campaign strap-line. That stream of tedium which saw various models repeat the moronic line “Because I’m worth it” over and over again, is here transformed into a brilliant piece of wit. The irony, with the benefit of hindsight, is delicious, an effect that many Banksy works seem to acquire, viewed over time. Banksy, one of the most successful artists on the planet worthless? Yeah, right… This version was sold at Bonhams auctioneers for £8,125 in 2021. It was a signed screenprint on paper, number 55 in edition of 75. If we extrapolate, that edition of the print would be worth a total of £609,375, assuming the price hasn’t gone up. We don’t suppose L’Oréal asked Banksy to do a commercial for them, although he clearly is so worth it.

(Tapies, Xavier: Where’s Banksy?, Graffito Books Ltd., 2019)