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Lot Essay
The Bride Stripped Bare of her Bachelors Even or The Green Box contains a collection of reproduced manuscript notes, photographs, and drawings from 1911-1915 that preceded the creation of Duchamp's seminal work The Large Glass (1915-1923). In describing Duchamp's masterpiece, André Breton wrote that The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, also known as The Large Glass, was 'at the frontiers of eroticism, a philosophical speculation...a kind of great modern legend' (quoted in Schwartz, op. cit. p. v). With The Green Box, Duchamp created not only a companion piece to The Large Glass but a new object that explains the creation of a previous work thereby breaking the standard meaning of creativity.
According to Pierre de Massot: 'Toward 1911, when Duchamp first began working on his most important work [The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, also called The Large Glass], he decided to make notes regarding this work in progress...the notes were of varying importance and size; they were numerous enough to make a large collection...Duchamp has rightly refused to give them an order after the fact. Nor does he simply hand them over to the printers: they have been photographed, and then plates have been made from photographs, and so the notes have been authentically reproduced--torn or blotted scraps of paper, scribblings on all types of paper, in pencil black and blue or red ink, unfinished notes, projects, plans, repetitions, etc, etc.--all that thrown together, pellmell, with drawings and admirable photographs in a big rectangular box which is the cover of the book. Is it necessary to add here, except for those who do not know him, with what meticulous care and research Marcel Duchamp has produced this cardboard box, whose title he composed with holes made by an engraver's burin?' ('La Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même' in Orbes, vol. 2, no. 4, summer 1935, quoted in Schwartz, op. cit., p. 724).
According to Jacqueline Matisse Monnier, the first owner of the box, Francois Le Lionnais, was a friend of Duchamp who was greatly appreciated by the artist for his understanding of mathematics and his ability as a chess player.
According to Pierre de Massot: 'Toward 1911, when Duchamp first began working on his most important work [The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, also called The Large Glass], he decided to make notes regarding this work in progress...the notes were of varying importance and size; they were numerous enough to make a large collection...Duchamp has rightly refused to give them an order after the fact. Nor does he simply hand them over to the printers: they have been photographed, and then plates have been made from photographs, and so the notes have been authentically reproduced--torn or blotted scraps of paper, scribblings on all types of paper, in pencil black and blue or red ink, unfinished notes, projects, plans, repetitions, etc, etc.--all that thrown together, pellmell, with drawings and admirable photographs in a big rectangular box which is the cover of the book. Is it necessary to add here, except for those who do not know him, with what meticulous care and research Marcel Duchamp has produced this cardboard box, whose title he composed with holes made by an engraver's burin?' ('La Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même' in Orbes, vol. 2, no. 4, summer 1935, quoted in Schwartz, op. cit., p. 724).
According to Jacqueline Matisse Monnier, the first owner of the box, Francois Le Lionnais, was a friend of Duchamp who was greatly appreciated by the artist for his understanding of mathematics and his ability as a chess player.