Stay Up Late

It was originally sold in 1992 for $80 (equivalent to $170 in 2023) and gained prominence in 2020 when television host John Oliver purchased the painting on Last Week Tonight.

[1] Swords is best known for painting a series of watercolors, including Stay Up Late, that depict a pair of anthropomorphic rats named Alice and Bob in sexually suggestive poses.

[2] In 1993, WITF-TV banned erotica from their yearly auction "Gallery 33" due to fear of alienating their audience and losing their FCC license.

[1] The painting appeared in the March 29, 2020 episode of Last Week Tonight when Oliver offered to buy it for $1,000 and make a $20,000 donation to a food bank.

[7] Emily Chambers, writing for politics blog Pajiba, referred to the extended joke as "the greatest story of the past century.