About this Item
Milan: Galleria Schwarz (Arturo Schwarz), 1967?1968. The complete artist?s book comprises nine original etchings, accompanied by title, text, and justification pages, issued loose as conceived. The work is signed in pencil by Marcel Duchamp and Arturo Schwarz on the justification page and is one of 150 numbered copies, with an additional fifteen copies numbered in Roman numerals.
The sheets and printed matter are preserved in the original wrappers, housed in the publisher?s orange linen-covered portfolio embossed in purple with the title, and further contained within the original wooden box.
The second volume of The Large Glass and Related Works emerged from the close collaboration between Marcel Duchamp and the Milan gallerist Arturo Schwarz, who, following their authorized replicas of the readymades, sought to extend the intellectual and visual reach of La mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même (Le Grand Verre) (1915?1923). Conceived not as a conventional catalogue but as an artist?s book, the publication translates Duchamp?s lifelong meditation on desire, delay, and irony into a limited-edition graphic form.
If Volume I anatomized the structure and notes of The Large Glass, Volume II acts as its imaginative sequel. According to Schwarz, these etchings were intended to suggest the consummation of the frustrated erotic drama staged in the Glass, in which the ?bachelors? eternally aspire toward the remote and mechanized ?bride.? Here, love and eroticism move to the foreground, rendered through a cycle of nine etchings executed by Duchamp in 1967?1968 on handmade paper watermarked THE LARGE GLASS II.
The series consists largely of erotic reinterpretations of canonical works of art, which Duchamp mischievously revises through displacement, doubling, and linguistic wit. Rodin?s The Kiss is subtly altered; Ingres? Oedipus and the Sphinx intertwines with The Turkish Bath; Courbet?s sensual nude becomes the subject of a bilingual pun when Duchamp adds a falcon?con signifying both falcon and a vulgar term for female genitalia?anticipating the voyeuristic structure later realized in Étant donnés (1946?1966).
One of the most significant plates, derived from Lucas Cranach?s Adam and Eve, functions in part as a self-portrait. Rather than quoting the Renaissance painting directly, Duchamp based the image on a well-known Man Ray photograph documenting a 1924 performance (Ciné Sketch) in which Duchamp, nude, posed as Adam beside Bronja (Brogna) Perlmutter as Eve during the intermission of Francis Picabia?s Surrealist ballet Relâche. In this way, the historical source, the photographic document, and Duchamp?s own body converge, collapsing authorship, appropriation, and self-representation into a single visual gesture.
Another etching depicts a kneeling nude at a prie-dieu; in a darker second state, Duchamp instructed that the illuminated contour should resemble a wedding dress and veil?an ironic resolution of the ?bride? who, in The Large Glass, was ?stripped bare by her bachelors, even.? Throughout the series, Duchamp?s visual ?rhymes? parallel the wordplay of his readymades and inscriptions, fusing eroticism, satire, and art-historical quotation into a meditation on desire fulfilled?if only in parody.
Overall dimensions of the boxed set: 49 × 31.5 × 9 cm. The etchings were previously framed, but there are no signs of discoloration, mat burn, stains, or tears. The images and front edges are clean. On the back of each etching, there are two small remnants of Japanese hanging paper at the top edge, but the prints themselves show no evidence of prior framing.
Reference: Schwarz 643, 658.
Seller Inventory # N - 2026 - 15
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