Why Not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy?
multiple by Marcel Duchamp
Why Not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy? is a 1921 "readymade" sculpture by Marcel Duchamp. Specifically, Duchamp considered this to be an "assisted Readymade", this being because the original objects of which the work is made up had been altered by the artist. They consist of a birdcage, 152 white cubes (resembling sugar cubes, but made of marble), a medical thermometer, a piece of cuttlebone, and a tiny porcelain dish. The birdcage is made of painted metal and contains several wooden perches.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art displays the original as part of the Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection. Several replicas exist, made by Duchamp, but only in the original are the cubes stamped "Made in France".
Explanation
About the sculpture, Duchamp said:
"It is a Readymade in which the sugar is changed to marble. It is sort of a mythological effect."
An explanation for the piece given by Duchamp involves the coldness of the marble cubes, the "heat-giving" properties of the sugar cubes, the thermometer evaluating temperature, and the sneezing that can result from cold. In commenting on the title Duchamp pointed out that there is a "dissociation gap" between sneezing at will and sneezing against one's will.
The public source identifies “Why Not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy?” as multiple by Marcel Duchamp. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Sneeze, Rose and Sélavy.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7997852. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1921.
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This entry incorporates text from “Why Not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy?” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.