Marcel Duchamp

Madeleine Turban, Rouen (acquired from the artist)

Acquired from the above in the 1980s

Robert Lebel, Marcel Duchamp, New York, 1967, illustration of another example p. 91

Calvin Tomkins, The World of Marcel Duchamp, New York, 1966, illustration of another example p. 106

Patrick Waldberg, Michel Sanouillet & Robert Lebel, Dada Surréalisme, Paris, 1971, illustration of the maquette p. 168

Jean Clair, L’Oeuvre de Marcel Duchamp, Catalogue raisonné, Paris, 1977, no. 136, illustration of another example

Jennifer Gough-Cooper & Jacques Caumont, Marcel Duchamp Work and Life /Ephemerides On and About Marcel Duchamp and Rrose Sélavy, Venice, 1993, entries for November 1, 1924 & April 20, 1924, n.p. 

Calvin Tomkins, Duchamp: A Biography, New York, 1996, illustration of the facsimile no. 12 p. 260

Arturo Schwarz, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp: revised and expanded edition, London, 1997, vol. II, no. 406, illustration of the maquette & another example p. 703

Francis M. Naumann, Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Making Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, New York, 1999, fig. 4.6, illustration in color of another example p. 102

Arturo Schwarz, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp: Revised and Expanded Paperback Edition, New York, 2000, vol. II, illustration of the maquette & another example p. 703

Jacques Caumont & Françoise Le Penven, System D, Paris, 2010, discussed p.224-25

Francis M. Naumann, The Recurrent, Haunting Ghost. Essays on the Art, Life and Legacy of Marcel Duchamp, New York, 2012, illustrations of other examples in color pp. 104 & 110

In the spring of 1924 while in the South of France to attend a chess tournament, Duchamp wrote to the Parisian collector Jacques Doucet: “I spend the afternoons in the game rooms, and I haven’t the least temptation. All that I lost there was done in full consciousness and I have not yet been seized by the ‘over-excitement’ of the playing hall. Everything about this life amuses me very much and I will explain to you one of my systems upon returning” (Duchamp to Jacques Doucent, Bibliothèque Littéraire Jacques Doucet, March 21, 1924, Universités de Paris).

During his time in Nice, Duchamp devised a system of gambling which he could apply to the roulette tables of Monte Carlo in his quest to beat the odds at the casino. After somewhat slow but steady success, he realized he would need to be more ambitious if he wanted to expand his profits. In order to raise the funds required to finance the increased wagers, Duchamp decided to issue shares in his new venture which would be established by the purchase of a bond. Duchamp planned to issue thirty shares at an assigned value of 500 francs each. These shares were repayable to investors over the course of a three-year period at the interest rate of twenty percent.

As irreverent as it is brilliant, Duchamp’s Monte Carlo Bond was carefully designed and issued by the artist himself. Drawing on imagery from contemporary popular culture, Duchamp incorporated Man Ray’s anthropomorphic photograph of him, with his hair lathered in soap to resemble the wings on top of Mercury's head, god of money. While these motifs were undoubtedly designed with humorous intent, the bond was to serve as a legitimate share of the company, as Francis Naumann explains, “It was also to be understood as a bona fide legal document” (F. M. Naumann, ‘Monte Carlo Bond’ in The Recurrent Haunting Ghost, New York, 2012, p. 107). While all versions of the bond bear the signatures M. Duchamp and Rrose Sélavy, only the bonds which bear a fifty-cent stamp are considered legal documents. Duchamp’s father was a notary and he was therefore familiar with the procedure by which a document becomes valid.  Interestingly, Duchamp would later use this same application of a stamp on many of his pochoirs to elevate an otherwise common reproduction to the position of an original work of art.

Examples of Duchamp’s Monte Carlo Bond are exceedingly rare. Despite the fact that Duchamp originally intended to produce upwards of thirty individual bonds, it is believed that he only produced eight, which were sold to a close circle of friends, such as Jacques Doucet, Ettie Stettheimer, George Hoyningen-Hune, and Marie Laurencin. He gifted the original bond no. 12 to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The present work was purchased by his close friend Madeleine Turban from Rouen whom he first met during in New York in 1917 when Turban was organizing a sale for the Red Cross. In December 1924 Duchamp and Turban, again in New York, kept a busy social calendar. They found time to attend films and "In the evenings, Marcel gives French conversation lessons using his Lewis Carroll text books and introduces Mad [Madeline Turban] to some of his pupils: Miss Dreier is suspicious when Marcel introduces her as his sister Magdeleine...; one of the prettiest is Jane Acker, an actress working for Metro Pictures. Louis Norton often accompanies them to dine with Joseph Stella in various downtown trattorias. Invariably the evenings end at the Arensbergs' apartment and with chess until the early hours of the morning" (J. Gough-Cooper & J. Caumont, op. cit., n.p.).