Ode on a Gold Commode

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Four British men, each in their thirties, were charged this week in the 2019 theft of a plumbed and operational 18-karat golden toilet from a British palace in an overnight raid that occurred in September of 2019.  The hijacked johnny has not been recovered.

The working toilet, which was created by Italian conceptual artist, Maurizio Catalan,  as a work of art to portray the American dream, was entitled simply "America."   It had been on display in a restroom at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City since 2016 before being moved to Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England, in September of 2019 where it was stolen just two days after its installation.  More than 100,000 individuals had used the functional objet d'art during its stay at the Guggenheim to relieve their bladders and bowels in sessions which were limited to three minutes per person.

The golden throne weighed 227 pounds and was valued at around $5.9 million.

At one point before being shipped off to Great Britain, the unique crapper was reportedly offered to the Trump White House for an extended exhibition, but Trump declined.  Perhaps he did not want to park his butt where so many of his fellow New Yorkers had parked theirs.  

Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England, is the ancestral home of the Duke of Marlborough and it is also the residence where future British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill was born.  The golden toilet had been installed in a bathroom directly across from the room where Churchill was born just two days before it was ripped up and removed by the thieves.   Water damage to the old palace as a result of the toilet's unprofessional removal was said to have been extensive.

Four men have been charged in the theft, others are believed to have been involved,  and the gold commode has not been recovered.  Authorities believe that it has likely been melted down into smaller and more easily transferable units and no longer exists as a useful public accommodation.

"America" may have flushed its final movement.