MARCEL DUCHAMP | Monte Carlo Bond

Madeleine Turban, Rouen (acquired from the artist) Acquired from the above by the present owner in the 1980s

Venice, Palazzo Grassi, Marcel Duchamp, Work and Life, 1993 Basel, Museum Jean Tinguely, Marcel Duchamp, 2002

Robert Lebel, Marcel Duchamp, London, 1959, no. 156, another example illustrated pl. 105 Calvin Tomkins, The World of Marcel Duchamp, New York, 1966, another example illustrated p. 106

Arturo Schwarz, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, London, 1969, no. 208, another example illustrated p. 490

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

Jean Clair, Marcel Duchamp, Catalogue raisonné, Paris, 1977, no. 136, another example illustrated p. 114

Jennifer Gough-Cooper & Jacques Caumont, Marcel Duchamp Work and Life / Ephemerides On and About Marcel Duchamp and Rrose Sélavy, Venice, 1993, another example illustrated n.p. (entry for 1st November)

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

Arturo Schwarz, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp: Revised and Expanded Edition, London, 1997, vol. II, no. 406, maquette and another example illustrated p. 703

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

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

Janis Mink, Marcel Duchamp: Art as Anti-Art, Cologne, 2004, another example illustrated in colour p. 72

Gloria Moure, Marcel Duchamp: Works, Writings and Interviews, Barcelona, 2009, another example illustrated in colour p. 85

Jacques Caumont & Françoise Le Penven, System D, Paris, 2010, discussed pp. 224-225

Francis M. Naumann, The Recurrent, Haunting Ghost. Essays on the Art, Life and Legacy of Marcel Duchamp, New York, 2012, fig. 11.1, another example illustrated in colour p. 104

Sylvain Amic & Joanne Snrech, Abécédaire de Marcel Duchamp, Paris, 2018, another example illustrated p. 61

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' (M. Duchamp in a letter to Jacques Doucet, 21st March 1924, Bibliothèque Littéraire Jacques Doucet, 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 realised that 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 the head of Mercury, 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 M. Naumann explains: 'It was also to be understood as a bona fide legal document' (F. M. Naumann, ‘Monte Carlo Bond’ in op. cit., 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 thirty individual bonds, it is believed that he only produced eight, which were sold to a close circle of friends, including 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 example was purchased by his close friend Madeleine Turban from Rouen whom he first met in New York in 1917 when Turban was organising 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.).



This work has been authenticated by the Association Marcel Duchamp.