Believe It or Not! Ripley’s Now Owns Maurizio Cattelan’s Golden Toilet
The Italian conceptual artist behind the infamous duct‑taped banana once again makes a splash with the sale of his golden toilet for $12.1 million at Sotheby’s New York. Save to My Ocula
One of America’s most enduring entertainment franchises is now the proud owner of Maurizio Cattelan’s solid-gold toilet, winning the artwork after being the sole bidder at Sotheby’s Now and Contemporary evening auction on Tuesday.
Sotheby’s did not list an estimate for Cattelan’s America (2016), a fully functional toilet made of 101.2 kilograms of solid gold, but bids started at USD 10 million (USD 12.1 million with fees)—a figure determined by the exact price of its weight in gold, according to the auction house.
The winning bidder was revealed on Wednesday, with Ripley’s describing being ‘flush with excitement’ in an Instagram post for ‘World Toilet Day’, an official United Nations international observance day established to recognise and take action to tackle the global sanitation crisis.
The Ripley’s franchise, which operates dozens of museums and entertainment venues worldwide, including aquariums, theatres, and live experiences, plans to ‘display the sculpture in all its glory, giving guests the chance to get up close to the world’s most extravagant restroom fixture’.
Cattelan’s America was first presented at New York’s Guggenheim Museum in 2016, where it was installed and plumbed in a public bathroom in the building.
The work made headlines when it was stolen from Blenheim Palace in England in 2019, where it was on loan from the Guggenheim for a solo exhibition of Cattelan’s works. It was never recovered, making Ripley’s the owner of the only fully fabricated edition of the work now known to exist.
It was a buoyant night for Sotheby’s, with Gustav Klimt’s oil-on-canvas portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914–1916) becoming the second most expensive artwork ever sold at auction, fetching USD 236.4 million (with fees) earlier in the evening.
As to whether America will once again be available for public use, Ripley’s is playing coy, noting that ‘the team is exploring possibilities’.
‘But such an opportunity requires serious planning and someone brave enough to ensure everything keeps flowing in the right direction.’ —[O]
Main image: Sotheby’s Now and Contemporary Evening Auction, New York (18 November 2025). Courtesy Sotheby’s. Photo: Alive.
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