The Baroness v. Duchamp: A Case Study in Revisionist Reattribution and the Art Historical Canon

In the November 2014 Art Newspaper article “Did Marcel Duchamp steal Elsa’s Urinal?,” the authors presented circumstantial evidence that they maintained proved that the canonical readymade Fountain was not, as is traditionally believed, the work of Marcel Duchamp, but by the artist, poet, and feminist icon Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Moreover, the authors insisted that this misattribution was not an innocent error of history, but that Duchamp willfully assumed authorship of the work with full knowledge that the concept rightfully belonged to the Baroness following her death and the deaths of his contemporaries who could expose his deception. The claim against Duchamp spread quickly via the Internet despite a conspicuous lack of direct evidence, and gradually began to appear in scholarly discussions despite the spuriousness of the accusation. The authors even demanded the resignation of longtime Tate director Nicholas Serota for allegedly perpetrating a fraud by misattributing the museum’s Fountain replica to Duchamp. My recent research, however, has unearthed a document that confirms Duchamp’s authorship of Fountain from an unimpeachable source. Regardless, the question remains: what would the larger impact have been had Fountain not been by Duchamp? What makes Fountain the icon it is today, and would a reattribution impact its status in the canon? How has the meaning of a reattribution of a canonical work to a marginalized female artist changed in the wake of the #MeToo movement? This paper will explore these hypotheticals in an effort to better understand the motivations and implications of revisionist reattribution.