A mural of green painted on a residential building behind a pruned tree in London’s Islington borough by the graffiti artist Banksy was found vandalized Wednesday.

Banksy posted before and after photos of the wall on his Instagram Monday, confirming that the artwork there was his.

The original mural first spotted last weekend used swathes of green paint behind the tree to look like leaves. A human figure with a pressure hose was also painted in the bottom left corner.

“Banksy’s come to Finsbury Park with a bit of greenery in a place that needs a bit more greenery. … It gives the idea that we could do with much more greenery everywhere and I think that’s a really nice message,” said Jeremy Corbyn, member of Parliament for Islington North and the former leader of Britain’s Labour Party, according to The Telegraph.

By Wednesday, an unknown perpetrator splashed white paint across parts of the green paint, defacing Banksy’s art. Before the vandalism, the council in Islington said it wouldn’t remove the artwork, according to the BBC.

“The white paint … is just vandalism, but then some would say Bansky is a vandal, so it’s just a certain point of view. … You will never catch them. It’s like when Banksy put it up — nobody saw anything. The other graffiti artists come over and have a bee in their bonnet and try to get one over him,” Lewis Cowell, a caretaker of the building where the mural was painted, told The Independent.

Mr. Cowell added that the local council will try to remove the white paint without damaging Banksy’s artwork.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.