Marcel Duchamp on eBay

Life is full of coincidences. The previous post, Multi-dimensional Chess Imagery, was about 'Marcel Duchamp in the Village [NYC] - 50 Years Later', and this current post, the next in the long-running series Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010), is also about Marcel Duchamp.

Titled 'MARCEL DUCHAMP : The Chess Players (Schwartz 621)', the item shown below sold at live auction for US $8000 after seven bids. The starting price was $5000 and the entire auction lasted less than 90 seconds.

The description said,

MARCEL DUCHAMP: The Chess Players (Schwartz 621) • Estimate: 14,000 - 18,000 USD • Plate: 437 by 574 mm, 17 1/4 by 22 5/8 in • Etching, 1965, signed in pencil, dedicated 'for Robert Motherwell', dated and numbered 25/50 (total edition includes ten artist's proofs), on handmade laid paper, framed.

CONDITION REPORT: The full sheet. Faint light-stain, slightly darker at mat opening and slight undulation to the sheet. Adhesive residue along the right and left sheet edges on the verso, showing through. The margins with a few tiny fox marks and spots of surface soiling and some slight creasing. The verso unevenly toned, with a few fox marks and traces of surface soiling.

The auction was conducted by the well-known Sotheby’s, first seen on this blog in Chess Sculpture at Auction (November 2016). At that time I wrote,

I couldn't remember seeing Sotheby’s on eBay. The seller's feedback listing was a modest 'sothebys (23); 90.9% positive feedback', with the earliest item going back about 18 months. The relatively low feedback rating seems to be related to shipping costs and communication problems.

The seller's feedback listing is now 'sothebys (33); 100% positive feedback', indicating that the auction house has improved its customer service on eBay. As for the reference 'Schwartz 621' in the title of the etching, Google auto-corrects a search on 'duchamp schwartz' to 'duchamp schwarz'. Whichever term is used, the first result is Wikipedia's Arturo Schwarz:-

Arturo Umberto Samuele Schwarz (born 2 February 1924) is an Italian scholar, art historian, poet, writer, lecturer, art consultant and curator of international art exhibitions. He lives in Milan, where he has amassed a large collection of Dada and Surrealist art, including many works by personal friends such as Marcel Duchamp, André Breton, Man Ray, and Jean Arp.

Wikipedia's first selected work concerning Schwarz is 'Marcel Duchamp: Sixty-six Creative Years; From the First Painting to the Last Drawing, Gallery Schwarz (Milan, Italy), 1972'. Is that the origin of the numbering? Whatever the origin, the Schwartz/Schwarz confusion is rampant in the art world.