The fully functional gold toilet valued at $1.8 million was stolen from Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill.
The toilet, titled ‘America’ was installed as part of an exhibition of work by Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan.
Police say at least two vehicles broke into the palace, a major tourist destination just before 5am.
A 66-year-old man has since been arrested in connection with the theft, but the toilet has not yet been recovered.
Cattelan intended the golden toilet to be a satire about wealth and consumption, saying, “whatever you eat, a $200 lunch or a $2 hot dog, the results are the same, toilet-wise”.
To prove the point, it was previously displayed in New York’s Guggenheim Museum when it was used by up to 100,000 people, (hmm).
Certainly puts a new spin on being flush.
