The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass)
Marcel Duchamp
1915-23
Oil, varnish, lead foil, lead wire, and dust on two glass plates
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This large (large = 109 1/4 inches by 69 1/4 inches) work was done by Duchamp after completion of Fountain which followed his watershed piece, "Nude descending a Staircase".
This is a very enigmatic work, made of nonstandard elements like wires and glass, yet presented in a surrealist or cubist style. As for its metaphysical aspect, Duchamp's preparatory notes insist that is is a "hilarious picture" intended to diagram the erratic progress of an encounter between the "Bride", (as shown in the upper portion), and her nine "Bachelors" (as shown in the lower) gathered tightly below her.
This work was exhibited only once, in 1926, whereupon it was accidentally broken. Duchamp spent almost a year painstakingly rebuilding it, though the large spiderwebs in the glass are plainly obvious even today (though some say they only improve the surreal qualities of the work).
The work was placed in the collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1953 at the bequest of Katherine S. Dreier where it remains today, as the largest work in the Duchamp gallery.