A Bottled Echo of Morée

Created in collaboration between Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, Belle Haleine
is often remembered for its gender-bending authorship—signed by Duchamp’s
alter ego, Rrose Sélavy—and its parody of a commercial perfume label.
But beneath the wit lies a more profound alignment with the visual logic of Morée.

Where Picabia’s Mistinguett offers the first known use of Parody of Glamour after
Morée, Belle Haleine takes the gesture even further. It doesn’t just mock glamour—
it manufactures it. The luxury is synthetic, the femininity performative, the object
a trap. Like Morée, its critique is disguised as allure.

More striking still is the Veil Water backdrop—a photographic surface that
resembles the water-worn ink patterns seen in Morée. Though masked out
in the printed version used for the New York Dada cover, the original
photograph bears Duchamp’s signature logic: beauty undone,
image sabotaged.

Belle Haleine demonstrates three of the Coded Gestures:

• Parody of Glamour (via the fake perfume branding)
• Authorial Punning (signed “Rrose Sélavy”)
• Drips as Sabotage (through the Veil Water backdrop)

If Morée introduced the method, Belle Haleine made it portable—compact, seductive, and sharpened to a conceptual point.
It is not just an homage. It is an iteration.