Ripley’s Believe it or Not, the American franchise dedicated to incredible facts, oddities, scientific curiosities and extraordinary records, announced that it has purchased the Paduan artist’s latest provocative work for over $12 million, which was auctioned Tuesday evening at Sotheby’s in New York.
“It is the most valuable and certainly the most dazzling piece ever to enter the Ripley’s collection,” said spokeswoman Suzanne Smagala-Potts.
“If it were melted down now, the gold alone would be worth about $10 million at today’s prices, making this perhaps the most ‘tempting’ bathroom break in the history of art.”
Founded in 1918 by cartoonist and adventurer Robert Ripley, who began by publishing a newspaper strip featuring stories and images of events or people so incredible they seemed impossible but true, Ripley’s Believe It or Not has over the years transformed into a media empire with a network of 30 ‘museums’ filled with bizarre objects, optical illusions and curiosities.
“Finding the incredible is our business,” said exhibitions director John Corcoran.
“But even we never imagined that one day we would need a plumber on call for an art installation.”
Ripley’s paid $4.8 million in 2016 for Marilyn Monroe’s dress.
Cattelan’s gold toilet was offered at auction by Steve Cohen, the owner of the New York Mets, whose extensive art collection includes other satirical works such as Jasper Johns’s 1958 Flag and a formaldehyde shark by Damien Hirst.
Cohen paid an unspecified amount for one of the two 18-karat toilets: the other, originally installed at the Guggenheim, was later exhibited at Blenheim Castle in Great Britain and stolen from there in 2019.
It fetched the second highest price for a Cattalan work after his Kneeling Hitler went for over $17 million in 2016.
ANSA
