The timing of Duchamp’s Bouche-évier multiple is a bit unclear to me. He Macguyvered the drain stopper for his bath in 1964, but didn’t have the editions of it cast in bronze, steel and silver—100 each—until 1967. So he was coming off his Pasadena retrospective, and in the middle of his Schwarz readymade fabrication-palooza. So minting his own coin or medal must have felt last icing on the selling-out cake.
None of which is that interesting, tbh, and with 300+ out there, the stoppers turn up all the time. What I’ve never seen, though, is one with an original leather pouch. It certainly is.
Marcel Duchamp, Bouche-évier, 1964, APII in bronze with sac, selling 21 Nov. 2024 at Cottone [liveauctioneers]