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Sotheby’s Sets Sale of Cattelan’s 18-Karat Gold Toilet ‘America’ With $10 Million Gold-Pegged Opening Bid

Visitors can view the functioning sculpture in a Breuer Building bathroom before the Nov. 18 auction, underscoring its blend of commodity and concept.

The conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan’s toilet, “America,” is believed to be gone forever, following an audacious heist in 2019. But a second version, created the same year as the original, has surfaced unexpectedly on the art market.
“America” at Benheim Palace, photographed two days before it was stolen.
“America” in its original location at the Guggenheim. It will now be installed at Sotheby's New York, but for visitors' eyes only.
The Guggenheim said some 100,000 museumgoers lined up to see — and use — the sculpture when the museum installed it in a small bathroom for a year.

Overview

  • The work will be offered in New York on Nov. 18 during Sotheby’s The Now and Contemporary evening sale.
  • Bidding will start at the market value of its 101.2 kilograms of 18-karat gold—about $10 million—and will track gold prices until the auction begins.
  • A public preview runs Nov. 8–17 at Sotheby’s Breuer Building headquarters, with one-at-a-time viewing in a bathroom and no use permitted.
  • Sotheby’s says this 2016 edition, acquired by its current owner in 2017, is the only surviving version after another edition was stolen from Blenheim Palace in 2019 and never recovered, with convictions secured earlier this year.
  • The auction house will accept cryptocurrency, and officials cite the piece’s dialogue between material worth and artistic value, drawing a contrast with Cattelan’s $6.2 million Comedian.