Gold toilet is missing from Churchill’s birthplace

 4 men had been charged Monday over the theft of an 18-carat gold bathroom from Blenheim Palace, the sprawling English u . s . a . mansion wherein British wartime chief Winston Churchill became born.

the rest room, worth four.8 million pounds ($five.95 million), was an paintings titled “the usa” and intended as a pointed satire approximately excessive wealth through Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan. It changed into a part of an artwork installation at Blenheim Palace, close to the metropolis of Oxford, some days before it vanished overnight in September 2019.

The Crown Prosecution service stated Monday it has legal crook charges in opposition to 4 guys, a long time 35-39, over the theft. they are accused of burglary and conspiracy to switch criminal belongings.

Seven people had been arrested over the heist, however no costs were brought until Monday, four years after the bathroom was stolen. The paintings has in no way been discovered.

The golden lavatory become completely functioning, and prior to the theft, traffic to the exhibition should e-book a 3-minute appointment to apply it. Police stated that because the rest room had been connected to the palace’s plumbing machine, its removal caused “vast damage and flooding” to the 18th-century building, a UNESCO international history site full of treasured artwork and fixtures that draws lots of visitors every 12 months.

The Guggenheim Museum in ny, where the artwork become set up in a lavatory prior to it being proven at Blenheim Palace, described the rest room as “cast in 18-carat gold.”

The museum stated the paintings invited viewers to “employ the fixture personally and privately” to enjoy “extraordinary intimacy with a piece of artwork.”

In 2021, the Thames Valley Police, the force investigating the robbery, cautioned that it would be a “challenge” to recover the toilet.

“can we ever see that bathroom once more? individually i ponder if it’s in the form of a bathroom to be flawlessly honest,” police and crime commissioner Matthew Barber told the BBC. “if you have that big quantity of gold I assume it seems in all likelihood that a person has already managed to eliminate it one manner or every other.”

The four suspects will appear at Oxford Magistrates’ courtroom on Nov. 28, prosecutors stated.