Marcel Duchamp

from or by Marcel Duchamp or Rrose Sélavy (Box in a Valise)

1935-1941

This is No. 1 of a "de luxe" edition of a travelling case (by Louis Vuitton) assembling 69 reproductions of Duchamp’s own work. This edition has one "original" and a dedication to Peggy Guggenheim, who assisted Duchamp financially in its production. It includes a miniature of the celebrated upturned urinal, Fountain, of 1917, and a reproduction of a "corrected ready-made" of 1919—Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, hirsute and inscribed "L.H.O.O.Q." These letters, when pronounced in French, make the phrase "Elle a chaud au cul", which was decorously translated by Duchamp as "there is fire down below".

On view

Artist Marcel Duchamp
Original Title de ou par Marcel Duchamp ou Rrose Sélavy (Boîte-en-valise)
Date 1935-1941
Medium Calfskin-covered valise containing paperboard, wood, buckram, oilcloth, velvet, ceramic, glass, cellophane, plaster, iron wire, iron and brass elements; reproductions in collotype, letterpress, and lithography on paper, cellulose acetate, paperboard, and canvas with tempera, watercolor, pochoir, ink, graphite, vegetable resins, and natural gums.
Dimensions 40.9 x 37.7 x 10.3 cm (maximum dimensions, container closed). Deluxe edition I of XX
Credit line Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York)
Accession 76.2553 PG 10
Collection Peggy Guggenheim Collection
Type Mixed media

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On view

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