Detail of Portrait (Dulcinea) by Duchamp in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, January 2012

Portrait (Dulcinea)

Marcel Duchamp, American (born France), 1887 - 1968

Geography: Made in France, Europe

Date: 1911

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 57 5/8 x 44 7/8 inches (146.4 x 114 cm) Framed: 60 1/2 x 47 7/8 x 2 3/8 inches (153.7 x 121.6 x 6 cm)

Copyright: © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / Estate of Marcel Duchamp

Curatorial Department: Modern Art

Object Location: Gallery 182, Modern and Contemporary Art, first floor (d’Harnoncourt Gallery)

Accession Number: 1950-134-54

Credit Line: The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950

Label:
This work is an erotic examination of time and movement, a portrait of a mysterious woman that Duchamp noticed on the street and imagined in various states of undress. Studying Étienne-Jules Marey’s (French, 1830 - 1904) and Eadweard Muybridge’s (American (born England), 1830 - 1904) experiments in chronophotography and beginning to develop a formal language for depicting motion in painting, Duchamp portrayed his invented character of Dulcinea here in five successive positions—each bearing less clothing, as if stripped over time. Presenting a series of static images to resemble the frames of a motion picture, Duchamp invites the viewer to animate them mentally into a fluid movement. The resulting motion portrait prefigures both his Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1950-134-59), painted in January 1912, and the Bride at the center of The Large Glass (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1952-98-1).

Text from: www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/51445.html?mulR=24080232|2