Trump asked the Guggenheim for a Van Gogh. The museum offered a used gold toilet

The Guggenheim Museum couldn’t accommodate President Donald Trump’s request to borrow a Van Gogh for his and Melania’s private living quarters.

But the museum in New York did offer up another work of art:

“America,” an 18-karat, solid gold toilet (that functions!) was offered to the Trumps by email, according to media reports.

The toilet had been on display at the museum, but the exhibit ended, making it available “should the President and First Lady have any interest in installing it in the White House,” curator Nancy Spector wrote in an email obtained by The Washington Post.

It’s the work of Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. The toilet, made available for use by people visiting the museum who may be unaccustomed to the trappings of extreme wealth, satirizes excess in the U.S.

It “offers a wink to the excesses of the art market but also evokes the American dream of opportunity for all — its utility ultimately reminding us of the inescapable physical realities of our shared humanity,” the Guggenheim’s description of the piece explains.

Spector, the Guggenheim curator, has been critical of Trump, writing on Instagram after the 2016 election, “This must be the first day of our revolution to take back our beloved country from hatred, racism and intolerance. Don’t mourn, organize.”

The Post received confirmation that Spector had offered the toilet via email to the Trumps.

Cattelan, the artist, told The Post the incident with the president was a delicate one.

“What’s the point of our life?” he said. “Everything seems absurd until we die and then it makes sense.”

Cattelan spoke to a Guggenheim blogger in 2016 before the installation’s opening about the connection between Trump and his creation.

“The aesthetics of this ‘throne’ recall nothing so much as the gilded excess of Trump’s real-estate ventures and private residences,” the blogger wrote.

But Trump’s rise came after Cattelan conceived of the toilet.

Even so, “it was probably in the air,” he said, adding the Trump connection gave the piece “another layer, but it shouldn’t be the only one.”

The toilet is estimated to have cost more than $1 million to create.

It is common for presidents and first ladies to receive art on loan from museums to decorate their quarters.

Reaction was mixed on Twitter to news of the museum’s offer.

Last summer, golden toilets popped up around Kansas City, with a message written on them encouraging people to “Take a Trump!”

This story was originally published January 25, 2018 at 3:05 PM with the headline "Trump asked the Guggenheim for a Van Gogh. The museum offered a used gold toilet."