It was like a scene out of a movie.

Girl with Balloon, ladies and gentlemen standing in the back of the room, auctioneer Oliver Barker announced with a bumptious bravado.

He was referring to the final lot of a Sothebys London auction on Friday, Oct. 5. The piece: a 2006 spray-paint-on-canvas work by the anonymous street artist Banksy .

When it hit the auction block, Barker began shouting out six-figure prices that bidders gobbled up, causing the paintings value to climb higher and higher in a frantic crescendo. Women in dresses and pearls clamped their hands over landline telephones to field anonymous requests. Men in suits jotted important messages down into even more important notebooks.

Sold! Barker chirped, rap-tap-tapping his gavel against the podium. The piece went for $1.4 million over three times the estimated price tying the current record for a Banksy artwork.

Just then, however, the pieces clunky frame erupted into an alarming and persistent beeping sound. The canvas descended through the bottom of the frame and emerged on the other side in tatters. The shredding process froze about halfway through, leaving the top portion of the painting intact. The bottom, however, appeared to be macerated into tiny ribbons.