Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
Lot 201 Property from the Collection of Carlton Lake

Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)

Henri-Pierre Roché (recto and verso)

Closed2 May 2012

Price Realised

USD 68,500

More Information

How to sell

Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
Henri-Pierre Roché (recto and verso)
signed and inscribed 'Marcel Duchamp 30 ans' (lower right)
pen and ink on paper
8 7/8 x 5¾ in. (22.5 x 14.6 cm.)
Drawn in 1917

Henri-Pierre Roché, Paris (gift from the artist).
Denise Roché, Paris.
Acquired from the above by the family of the late owner, 1968.

Specialist note

Madame Jacqueline Matisse Monnier and the Association Marcel Duchamp will issue a certificate of authenticity to the buyer of this work, upon request.

The present work was the place card Duchamp made for Henri-Pierre Roché at the artist's 30th birthday dinner held at the Stettheimer sisters' home. When held up to the light, the lines on the recto and verso overlap and combine to spell out the name 'ROCHE.'

Henri-Pierre Roché was an influential journalist and proponent of the avant-garde who introduced Leo and Gertrude Stein to Picasso in 1905, helped the latter search for the enlarged studio he hoped to acquire with the proceeds from the 1924 sale of his Cubist master work, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, and advised lawyer John Quinn on his modernist art collection. Roché's semi-autobiographical 1953 novel, Jules et Jim, was made into François Truffaut's celebrated film of the same name shortly after his death in 1959.

The present and following lots were acquired directly from Roché's second wife, Denise.