Sotheby’s revealed that Cattelan created three toilets in 2016, with the second version on display in a bathroom at New York’s Breuer Building until it went under the hammer.
The auction house described it as a “cultural phenomenon” and an “incisive commentary on the collision of artistic production and commodity value”.
David Galperin, head of contemporary art at Sotheby’s New York, called it Cattelan’s “tour de force”.
“Holding both a proverbial and literal mirror to the art world, the work confronts the most uncomfortable questions about art, and the belief systems held sacred to the institutions of the market and the museum,” he said.
On the same evening a portrait by the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt was sold for $236.4m (£179m), making it the second most expensive piece ever sold at auction.
