Cleaners at an Italian art gallery chucked a piece of modern art in the bin after they believed it was rubbish left over from a party.

After the Museion art gallery in Bolzano held an event on Friday evening, the cleaning team arrived the following morning to find the floor scattered with empty champagne bottles, cigarette buts and confetti.

However, it transpires the detritus wasn't leftover of a big blowout from the night before, but was actually a piece entitled "We Were Going to Dance Tonight" by Milanese artists Goldschmied & Chiari.

The instalment was a satirical take on the lavish parties of the Italian political classes during the 1980s, with the duo taking inspiration from a guide to nightclubs written by Italy’s former Minister of Foregn Affairs, Gianni De Michelis.

However it seems as though the installation looked too much like the real deal. “Of course we warn staff not to clean away art,” Letizia Ragaglia, the gallery’s curator, told Alto Adiga. “We told them just to clean the foyer because that’s where the event on Friday night had been. Evidently they mistook the installation for the foyer.”

I precedenti illustri ci sono tutti, dalla vasca di Joseph Beuys alla porta di Duchamp. Questa mattina il personale... Posted by Museion Bozen-Bolzano on Saturday, 24 October 2015

Despite clearing away the exhibition into a series of bin bags, the cleaners realised their error before disposing of it.