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MARCEL DUCHAMP
Coffee Mill
Etching, 1947. 180x80 mm; 7
1
/
8
x3
1
/
8
inches, full margins. Numbered 69/200 in pencil,
lower left. A very good, evenly-printed impression.
Duchamp etched this print in 1947, for inclusion in the Gleize/Metzinger book
Du
Cubisme
, after the same-titled painting he had made in 1911 for his sculptor brother
Raymond Duchamp-Villon. His brother was married in 1911 and had asked his artist
friends to make him small paintings with which to decorate his kitchen.
According to Duchamp’s later recollection,“I made this old-fashioned coffee mill for him.
It shows the different facets of the coffee grinding operation and the handle on top is
seen simultaneously in several positions as it revolves.You can see the ground coffee in a
heap under the cogwheels of the central shaft, which turns in the directions of the arrow
on top,” (d’Harnoncourt/McShine,
Marcel Duchamp
, 1973, page 256).
[1,500/2,500]