?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
MARCEL DUCHAMP Pulled at Four Pins.
Etching, 1964. 315x225 mm; 12 1/2x8 3/4 inches, full margins. Signed and numbered 53/100 in pencil, lower margin. Published by Galeria Schwarz, Milan. A very good impression.
Pulled at Four Pins was originally an unpainted tin chimney cowl readymade (the object's normal function was to turn in the wind to make a chimney draw better), dating from 1915, that Duchamp (1887-1968) gave to his friend Louise Varese, who misplaced it years later. All that remains of the work are the artist's notes and impressions of the current etching, which he created decades later, based on the original. There has been confusion surrounding the work from early on, beginning with the artist's title, which seems to make no sense (and this may be exactly what Duchamp intended). Arturo Schwarz, Duchamp's friend and art dealer, pointed out that this piece was mistaken for a weathervane; André Breton mistook it for one in 1935. According to Schwarz, Breton also noted that Duchamp likely purchased this readymade, for his artistic re-purposing, around the same time as he acquired the snow shovel for his In Advance of the Broken Arm, 1915. Breton explained, "The ceiling of Duchamp's studio in 1915 was bristling with objects such as coat hangers, combs, weathercocks, all accompanied by some discordant inscription that served as a title or caption" Schwarz 609.
