Marcel Duchamp

Francis M. Naumann Fine Art, New York
Acquired from the above

Ecke Bonk, Marcel Duchamp, The Box in a Valise, de ou par Marcel Duchamp ou Rrose Sélavy, New York, 1989, no. 10, illustration of another example p. 212
Francis M. Naumann, Marcel Duchamp, The Art of Making Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, New York, 2000, illustration of another example fig. 5.20
Arturo Schwarz, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, vol. I, New York, 2000, no. 458, illustration of another example p. 745

The sheet has not been laid down but is mounted on the mat along the center of the top edge and at the center of the bottom edge. There is very minor time fading to the paper along the periphery of the sheet. The work is in excellent original condition.
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In 1912 Marcel Duchamp executed his most radical and significant early work. Nu descendant un escalier no. 2,  a kaleidoscopic exploration of movement painted in a Cubo-Futurist style, was meant to be exhibited in the year of its execution at the Salon des indépendants in Paris, but its literary title and unconventional approach led Duchamp to withdraw the work after receiving critical comments from Albert Gleizes and other "hard-line" Cubists. The following year Duchamp submitted the painting to the now-famous 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art—known as the Armory Show—in New York, where it caused a great sensation. Lampooned by the critics but admired by a number of influential collectors, Nu descendant un escalier no. 2 established Duchamp at the forefront of the avant-garde.

By 1937 painting had long ceased to be a part of Duchamp’s artistic practice and his incisive and experimental ready-mades and subversive objects had transformed the way in which the creation of art was determined. However, during the summer of 1937 Duchamp was prompted to create a miniature retrospective in the form of pochoir reproductions housed in a Boîte-en-Valise. The expense of commissioning the carefully prepared stencils and skilled hand-coloring led Duchamp to consider publishing an edition of 250 reproductions of each of the five chosen works. Ultimately, only Nu descendant un escalier no. 2 and Le Grand verre (The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even) were created, and in such small editions that the exact number of prints remains unknown. The question of authenticity and originality had long played a part in his conceptual works, and Duchamp brought these ideas to bear in the pochoir reproductions. Standard practice in France when authenticating legal documents—of which Duchamp was well aware due to his father’s position as the notary of Blainville-Crevon—was for the lawyer to apply a small-denomination postage stamp to the document and sign his name across it. This resourceful method of preventing falsified reproduction was carried out by Duchamp on each original pochoir.