A solid gold toilet is up for auction with a $10 million starting price
Toilet made of solid gold going to auction with $10 million starting price
- Sotheby's will auction "America", a solid gold, fully functional toilet sculpture by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, on 18 November in New York.
- The sculpture, weighing over 101.2 kilograms (223 pounds) of gold, has a starting price of approximately $10 million, reflecting its intrinsic material value.
- Cattelan created two versions of "America" in 2016, with the one being sold having been privately owned since 2017.
- The other version was famously displayed at the Guggenheim Museum and later offered to U.S. President Donald Trump, before being stolen from Blenheim Palace in 2019 and never recovered.
- Sotheby's describes the artwork as an "incisive commentary on the collision of artistic production and commodity value", with Cattelan himself stating it satirises excessive wealth.