Untitled (Blue Sand Box with Spiral)

Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp met in 1933, at an exhibition of Brancusi's work that Duchamp had organized at the Brummer Gallery in New York. The two became closer after Duchamp returned to New York in 1942, at which time he employed Cornell to assemble the boxes of miniature artworks for the Bôite de valise edition. Duchamp's companion during this time was Mary Reynolds, who also came to know Cornell, and this box was believed to have been one of at least four boxes that she is known to have purchased from the artist. Cornell often placed purposefully cracked glass in his works, including Habitat Group for a Shooting Gallery, 1943, (Des Moines Art Center) and Untitled (Window Facade), circa 1950-1952, (The Menil Collection). In the present work, the cracked glass is covered with a sheet of unbroken glass, to keep the contents sealed but also to preserve the found nature of the underlying pane.