Your comment made it sound like the artist had defaced an historical object.

I’m no art critic, but I would interpret the work as a statement on a mundane, usually overlooked object becoming something dazzling and valuable (eta: as literally happened to Van Gogh, and you could go further and say he was sat on and used during life, etc; I can think of much more, but it doesn’t sound like you’ll care), but that’s just me.