A Possible Marcel Duchamp Connection

One small but persistent mystery in Morée is the signature—two dots before “..Morée…” and three after. An odd bit of punctuation. But in Duchamp’s world, small details often signal something larger.

One possible link? Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 and No. 3.

Nude No. 3, painted in 1916 for the Arensbergs, is a replica of No. 2—but with a telling variation: the pearls. In No. 3, they’re rendered with far greater clarity and refinement. It’s possible the Arensbergs had asked for this refinement.

By 1916, Duchamp was steeped in Dada—chance, irony, sabotage. The pearls, with their bourgeois aesthetic, may have struck him not as homage, but as regression— or even provocation.

And something else shifted. Nude No. 3 was painted over a photographic enlargement, mounted on wood. The enlargement has one very distinct feature: a black photographic border framing the entire image. (see image-right below)

In Morée, that border returns—this time, painted by hand.

It’s not decorative. It echoes the photographic edge of No. 3, transforming a photographic frame into a painterly one. 

Another link: Conservators believe a drop of alcohol or solvent hit the blue ink wash in No. 3, causing the pigment to repel and create a distinct halo. Whether accidental or not, the resulting effect became part of the image.

Whoever made Morée didn’t just absorb the imagery of the pearls—they responded to the technical conditions behind them. The photographic border in Nude No. 3 becomes a painted frame. And a small, accidental disturbance in No. 3—possibly a drop of solvent or alcohol disrupting the ink—may have helped spark what we’re now calling the “Veil Water” effect.

The pearls in Nude No. 2 and Nude No. 3 may ultimately reveal their role—as the instigators of Morée. The black border tightening the connection to Nude No. 3.