Cattelan's Gold Toilet Sells for $12.1 Million at Sotheby's

A solid gold toilet sculpture by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan sold for $12.1 million at Sotheby's auction house in New York on Tuesday evening, drawing limited interest despite its provocative history and satirical intent.

The artwork, titled "America" and created in 2016, is an 18-karat gold fixture weighing 101 kilograms. It fetched the price after a single bid over the phone, starting at $10 million, which roughly matched the current market value of its gold content, estimated at about $9.9 million. Auctioneer Phyllis Kao paused for a minute to solicit additional offers from the more than 200 attendees and online viewers, but none emerged. The final amount included buyer's premiums. The piece, one of only two editions produced by Cattelan, was consigned by New York Mets owner Steve Cohen, who acquired it in 2017 from the Marian Goodman Gallery.

"America" debuted as a fully functional installation at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, where it connected to the building's plumbing and drew over 100,000 visitors who booked short sessions to use it. The Guggenheim later offered to loan the sculpture to the White House in 2017 after President Donald Trump requested a Vincent...