The emailed response from the Guggenheim’s chief curator to the White Housewas polite but firm: the museum could not accommodate a request to “borrow”a painting by Vincent Van Gogh for President Donald and Melania Trump’sprivate living quarters.

Instead, wrote the curator, Nancy Spector, another piece was available, onethat was nothing like “Landscape with Snow,” the lovely 1888 Van Goghrendering of a man in a black hat walking along a path in Arles with hisdog.

The curator’s alternative: an 18-karat, fully functioning, solid goldtoilet – an interactive work entitled “America” that critics have describedas pointed satire aimed at the excess of wealth in this country.

For a year, the Guggenheim had exhibited “America” – the creation ofcontemporary artist Maurizio Cattelan – in a public restroom on themuseum’s fifth floor for visitors to use.

But the exhibit was over and the toilet was available “should the Presidentand First Lady have any interest in installing it in the White House,”Spector wrote in an email obtained by the Washington Post.

The artist “would like to offer it to the White House for a long-termloan,” wrote Spector, who has been critical of Trump. “It is, of course,extremely valuable and somewhat fragile, but we would provide all theinstructions for its installation and care.”

Sara Eaton, a Guggenheim spokeswoman, confirmed that Spector wrote theemail last Sept. 15 to Donna Hayashi Smith of the White House’s Office ofthe Curator. Spector, who has worked in various capacities at the museumfor 29 years, was unavailable to talk about her offer, Eaton said.

The White House did not respond to inquiries about the matter.

Cattelan, reached by phone in New York, referred questions about the toiletto the Guggenheim, saying with a chuckle, “It’s a very delicate subject.”Asked to explain the meaning of his creation and why he offered it to theTrumps, he said, “What’s the point of our life? Everything seems absurduntil we die and then it makes sense.”

He declined to reveal the cost of the gold it took to create “America,”though it has been estimated to have been more than $1 million.

“I don’t want to be rude, I have to go,” the artist said, before hanging up.

It is common for presidents and first ladies to borrow major works of artto decorate the Oval Office, the first family’s residence and various roomsat the White House. The Smithsonian loaned the Kennedys a Eugene Delacroixpainting entitled “The Smoker.” The Obamas preferred abstract art, choosingworks by Mark Rothko and Jasper Johns.

On the face of it, President Trump might appreciate an artist’s renderingof a gilded toilet, given his well-documented history of installinggold-plated fixtures in his residences, properties and even his airplane.But the president is also a well-known germophobe, and it’s an openquestion whether he would accept a previously used toilet, 18-karat orotherwise.

Cattelan’s “America” caused something of a sensation after the Guggenheimunveiled it in 2016 and more than a few headlines.

“WE’RE NO. 1! (And No. 2)” was the New York Post’s front page offering, thehuge lettering over a photograph of the toilet. The tabloid’s coverageincluded a reporter’s first-person account (“I Rode the Guggenheim’s GoldenThrone”) and a photograph of that reporter seated on the toilet (readinghis own newspaper, naturally).

The museum posted a uniformed security guard outside the bathroom tomonitor the “more than 100,000 people” who waited “patiently in line forthe opportunity to commune with art and with nature,” Spector wrote in aGuggenheim blog post lasy year. Every 15 minutes or so, a crew would arrivewith specially-chosen wipes to clean the gold.

Cattelan, 57, is well-known in the art world for his satirical andprovocative creations, including a sculpture depicting Pope John Paul IIlying on the ground after being hit by a meteorite. Another was achild-sized sculpture of an adult Hitler, kneeling. The artist’s works havesold for millions of dollars.

Cattelan has resisted interpreting his work, telling interviewers he wouldleave that to his audience. He conceived of the gold toilet prior toTrump’s candidacy for president, though he has acknowledged that he mayhave been influenced by the mogul’s almost unavoidable place in Americanculture.

“It was probably in the air,” he told a Guggenheim blogger in 2016 as”America” went on display.

Cattelan has also suggested that he had in mind the wealth that permeatesaspects of society, describing the golden toilet “as one-percent art forthe ninety-nine percent.” “Whatever you eat, a two-hundred-dollar lunch ora two-dollar hot dog, the results are the same, toilet-wise,” he has said.

Cattelan is not the first artist to immortalize a bathroom fixture. In1917, Marcel Duchamp, the French Dada-ist, unveiled “Fountain,” a porcelainurinal that was rejected when he initially submitted it for exhibition. Areplica is owned by the Tate galleries in London.

At the Guggenheim, when Cattelan raised the notion of a gold toilet inmid-2015, Spector, the curator, embraced the idea and got approval from themuseum’s director, Richard Armstrong. Asked if Armstrong supported thecurator’s offer of the toilet to the White House, the Guggenheim’sspokeswoman replied, “We have nothing further to add.”

The curator, in blog posts and on social media, has made plain herpolitical leanings.

“This must be the first day of our revolution to take back our belovedcountry from hatred, racism and intolerance,” Spector wrote on Instagram aday after Trump’s 2016 election. Her post was accompanied by a RobertMapplethorpe photo of a frayed American flag.

“Don’t mourn, organize,” the curator wrote.

Last August, as the Cattelan’s “America” was approaching its final weeks,Spector wrote on the Guggenheim blog that Trump had “resonated so loudly”during the “sculpture’s time at the museum. She described his term ashaving been “marked by scandal and defined by the deliberate rollback ofcountless civil liberties, in addition to climate change denial that putsour planet in peril.”

A month later, the curator crafted her response to the White House’srequest for Van Gogh’s “Landscape with Snow.” She explained that thepainting – “prohibited from travel except for the rarest of occasions” -was on its way to be exhibited at the Guggenheim’s museum in Bilbao, Spain,and then it would return to New York “for the foreseeable future.”

“Fortuitously,” Spector wrote, Cattelan’s “America” was available afterhaving been “installed in one of our public restrooms for all to use in awonderful act of generosity.”

She included with the email a photograph of the toilet “for your reference.”

“We are sorry not to be able to accommodate your original request,” thecurator concluded, “but remain hopeful that this special offer may be ofinterest.” – Washington Post