''Belle Haleine, Eau de Voilette'' (''Beautiful Breath, Veil Water'') is a work of art by

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, ; ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, Futurism and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Pica ...

, with the assistance of

Man Ray Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American naturalized French visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, ...

. First conceived in 1920, created spring of 1921, ''Belle Haleine'' is one of the

Readymades of Marcel Duchamp The readymades of Marcel Duchamp are ordinary manufactured objects that the artist selected and modified, as an antidote to what he called "retinal art".Tomkins: ''Duchamp: A Biography'', page 158. By simply choosing the object (or objects) and r ...

, or more specifically a rectified ready-made.''Belle Haleine eau de Voilette or Beautiful Breath: Veil Water''
The Marcel Duchamp Studies Online Journal, tout fait.comMarcel Duchamp, ''L.H.O.O.Q. or La Joconde'', 1964 (replica of 1919 original)

Norton Simon Museum The Norton Simon Museum is an art museum located in Pasadena, California. It was previously known as the Pasadena Art Institute and the Pasadena Art Museum and displays numerous sculptures on its grounds. Overview The Norton Simon collections ...

, Pasadena A photograph of the object, by Man Ray, was reproduced on the cover of ''New York Dada'' magazine in April 1921. This "readymade" consisted of a Rigaud brand perfume bottle with a modified label. It involved taking a mundane, utilitarian object, not generally considered to be art, and transforming it by adding a reworked label. In 2009, ''Belle Haleine, Eau de voilette'' became the most expensive Duchamp piece ever sold at auction when it brought in $11,500,000 (€8,913,000) at

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shan ...

in Paris.Marcel Duchamp, ''Belle haleine - Eau de voilette''
Collection Yves Saint Laurent et Pierre Bergé, Christie's Paris, Lot 37. 23 - 25 February 2009, Lot notes by Francis M. Naumann, November 2008 Previously, an artist's multiple of Duchamp's famed ''

Fountain A fountain, from the Latin "fons" ( genitive "fontis"), meaning source or spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect. Fountains were o ...

'' owned by

Arturo Schwarz Arturo Umberto Samuele Schwarz (2 February 1924 – 23 June 2021) was an Italian scholar, art historian, poet, writer, lecturer, art consultant and curator of international art exhibitions. He lived in Milan, where he amassed a large collection o ...

held the record, selling for $1,762,500 on November 17, 1999 at

Sotheby's Sotheby's ( ) is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine art, fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

in New York.

Overview

Duchamp removed the label from a bottle, then proceeded, with Man Ray, to alter the object in several ways. The new label was specifically created by the two artists for the Rigaud bottle. For this reason ''Belle Haleine, Eau de Voilette'' is often referred to as an 'assisted readymade'. The model on the label is

Rrose Sélavy Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, ; ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, Futurism and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Pica ...

, an

alter ego An alter ego (Latin for "other I") means an alternate Self (psychology), self, which is believed to be distinct from a person's normal or true original Personality psychology, personality. Finding one's alter ego will require finding one's other ...

of Marcel Duchamp and one of his pseudonyms. Sélavy emerged in 1921, on this label, for the first time, though the name was first used to sign a readymade, ''Fresh Widow'', in 1920. Man Ray continued a series of photographs showing Duchamp dressed as a woman through the 1920s. Duchamp later used the name as the byline on written material and signed Rrose Sélavy on several works. The ambiguity of Duchamp in

drag Drag or The Drag may refer to: Places * Drag, Norway, a village in Tysfjord municipality, Nordland, Norway * ''Drág'', the Hungarian name for Dragu Commune in Sălaj County, Romania * Drag (Austin, Texas), the portion of Guadalupe Street a ...

is not dissimilar to the image of the ''

Mona Lisa The ''Mona Lisa'' is a half-length portrait painting by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, ...

'' with a goatee and mustache in Duchamp's ''

L.H.O.O.Q. ''L.H.O.O.Q.'' () is a work of art by Marcel Duchamp. First conceived in 1919, the work is one of what Duchamp referred to as readymades, or more specifically a rectified ready-made.

'' (1919). Mona Lisa became a man, and Duchamp became a woman. The original label on the Rigaud bottle read "Un air embaumé" (meaning perfumed air, or embalmed air), "Eau de Violette" (or Violet Water). By swapping positions of the "i" and "o" Duchamp and Man Ray obtained "Eau de Voilette" (meaning Veil Water). "Un air embaumé" was replaced with the unapologetic "Belle Haleine" (or "Beautiful Breath"). The "R" for Rigaud became "RS" for Rrose Sélavy. The object touches on several issues; authorship, since the label is by Rigaud, Duchamp and Man Ray; gender identity or sexual orientation, as the woman's perfume now has a Duchamp as its principle image. Further sexual connotations arise due to suggestions of smell, touch, and taste intrinsic to the piece. Shortly after its inception, Duchamp gave the bottle to Yvonne Chastel-Crotti, the ex-wife of

Jean Crotti Jean Crotti (24 April 1878 – 30 January 1958) was a French painter. Crotti was born in Bulle, Fribourg, Switzerland. He first studied in Munich, Germany at the School of Decorative Arts, then at age 23 moved to Paris to study art at the ...

(who eventually married

Suzanne Duchamp Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti (20 October 1889 – 11 September 1963) was a French Dadaist painter, collagist, sculptor, and draughtsman. Her work was significant to the development of Paris Dada and modernism and her drawings and collages explore f ...

). Yvonne Crotti kept it throughout her lifetime. The first exhibition within which ''Belle Haleine'' appeared was organized by the Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery, New York City, in 1965; though a larger collage version of the label was shown in 1930, at Galerie Goemans in Paris. The title uses the feminine noun "''haleine''", which from the French language translates into 'breath', specifying the psychic content (from the Greek ''psykhḗ,'' 'vital breath'). However, the two cities indicated on the label suggest the adoption of both languages. If "''Haleine''" is pronounced in a mixture of French and American it would have vague vowel similarity to “Hélène", in English “''Helen''”. The paraphony is suggested by the association with the adjective "''Belle''". The name is that of the daughter of Leda (Euripides, ''Helen'', Prologue, v. 133), who was considered in Greek mythology to be the embodiment of ideal beauty and grace, praised in every age. The title of the ''ready-made'' would follow that of Jacques Offenbach, ''La Belle Hélène'', a comic opera in three acts, set in Sparta (first performance: Paris, Théâtre des Varieétés, December 17, 1864). It is linked to a parodic tradition of the Homeric legend of Helen. The heroine "Mariée au peu ardent Ménelas", in the finale runs away with her lover, "Pâris" (text by Henri and Ludovic Halévy). The American Man Ray would have participated in the work, 'capturing' the photographic image, like Paris, author of the legendary capture of Helen. Elsewhere Duchamp has already played on the “double meaning of «Paris» like Paris 'city''and Paris 'Greek hero''. Transliterated into Latin: Páris��. «Presumably, Duchamp drew the greatest ideas for his work from the reading of the tragedy of Euripides ''Helen'', in which a different plot is carried out. ..In the ''Prologue'' of the tragedy, set in Egypt, the protagonist dissociates herself from the current Homeric version, in revealing herself that, following the judgment of Paris, the goddess Hera, as a prize, did not give him Helen in person, "but a living image”, made in his “created likeness with celestial matter” («eídōlon émpnoun ouranoũ», Euripides, ''Helen'', vv. 33-34). Her clarification was intended to dispel any suspicion of ubiquity and remedy her "shameful reputation" (''Ib.'', v. 135)». After clarifying the distinction between image and body (“eikṑn”, “sōma”, ''Ib.'', v. 588), the double of Helen ("eidōlon", ''Ib.'', v. 582) "flew into the depths of the ether and disappeared" (''Helen'', v. 605). ''Eau de Voilette'' met the same fate. The scent-bottle, exhibited at the historic Duchamp exhibition in Venice (Palazzo Grassi 1993), appeared empty. Only air remained inside. However, since every form wants its content, the same spirit could be locked up again in the perfume bottle along with the same humor as Duchamp, who revealed it (made it manifest) from the very moment he concealed it with an artifice. He was hidden under a thin veil (“''Voilette''”). Any observer is able to do this, according to Duchamp's poetics.“All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.” (From ''Art New'', summer 1957). Text of an exhibition made by Marcel Duchamp in front of the Conference of the American Federation of the Arts, gathered in Houston (Texas) and dedicated to the study of the ''creative act''. The French translation of this text was done by Duchamp himself: “Somme toute, l’artist n’est pas seul à complier l’acte de création car le spectateur établit le contact de l’œuvre avec le monde extérieur en déchiffrant et en interprétant ses qualifications profondes et par là ajoute sa propre contribution au processus créatif” (''Marchand du Sel, écrits de Marcel Duhamp, réunit par Michel Sanouillet'', Le Terrain Vague, Paris 1958, p. 172).

References

External links

Pierre Cabanne, ''Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp''
New York, 1971, p. 64, full text online.

Gelatin silver print, Philadelphia Museum of Art {{Marcel Duchamp Works by Marcel Duchamp 1921 works Parodies of advertising Found object Perfumes

Overview

See also

References

Further reading

External links