LONDON — For sale: The world’s most valuable toilet, a lavatory literally worth its weight in gold.

Sotheby’s announced Friday that it will auction off the solid gold cistern, a sculpture by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan entitled “America.”

The auction house calls it an “incisive commentary on the collision of artistic production and commodity value.” It’s also a fully functional toilet, identical to one that gained global fame when it was stolen in an audacious heist from England’s Blenheim Palace in 2019.

The starting price at the Nov. 18 auction in New York will be the price of the just over 101.2 kilograms (223 pounds) of gold used to make it — currently about US$10 million.

David Galperin, head of contemporary art at Sotheby’s in New York, said Cattelan is “the consummate art w

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