Marcel Duchamp’s The Large Glass is a work of art to be looked both at and through. Although Duchamp called the Glass “a hilarious picture,” he took it seriously enough to devote eight years to its intricate execution. As a twenty-seven-year-old newcomer to New York, in 1915 he began to work on this masterpiece, having first conceived of it three years earlier while sojourning in Munich. Each element of the Glass is the result of meticulous studies, calculations, and experiments. Accordingly, Duchamp prepared a voluminous body of notes that address the narrative described by the work’s full title. In 1934 he published ninety-four of these notes in The Green Box, which suggest possible readings of the imagery of the Glass, and document in painstaking detail the complex interactions and erotic tension between the enigmatic bride in the upper panel and her nine uniformed bachelors below.

In 1923 Duchamp stopped working on the Glass, stating that it was “definitively unfinished.” A few years later, while in transit following an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 1926–27, the two panels were shattered. Ten years would pass before Duchamp repaired the glass fragments, laboriously securing them between new panes and housing the fabrication in an aluminum frame. Satisfied with the result and the appearance of the eerily symmetrical cracks in the upper and lower sections of the work, he declared it finished. Occupying the space in the Museum chosen by the artist a half-century ago, The Large Glass has become the subject of extensive scholarship, and the object of pilgrimages for countless visitors drawn to its witty, intelligent, and vastly liberating redefinition of what a work of art can be. Carlos Basualdo, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2014, pp. 340–341.

Surely one of the most enigmatic works of art in any museum, The Large Glass dominates a gallery devoted to Marcel Duchamp's work from the exact location in which he placed it in 1954. Painstakingly executed on two planes of glass with unconventional materials such as lead foil, fuse wire, and dust, the appearance of the Glass is the result of an extraordinary combination of chance procedures, carefully plotted perspective studies, and laborious craftsmanship. As for its metaphysical aspect, Duchamp's voluminous preparatory notes, published in 1934, reveal that his "hilarious picture" is intended to diagram the erratic progress of an encounter between the "Bride," in the upper panel, and her nine "Bachelors" gathered timidly below amidst a wealth of mysterious mechanical apparatus. Exhibited only once (in 1926 at the Brooklyn Museum) before it was accidentally broken and laboriously repaired by the artist the Glass joined the Museum's collection in 1953 and has gradually become the subject of a vast scholarly literature and the object of pilgrimages for countless visitors drawn to its witty, intelligent, and vastly liberating redefinition of what a work of art can be. Anne d'Harnoncourt, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections (1995), p. 316.

Duchamp's Large Glass is as radical in appearance as in its intentions and implications. A work of art to be looked both through and at, neither a painting nor a sculpture, Duchamp called the Glass "a hilarious picture" but took it seriously enough to devote eight years to its making. He began work on his magnum opus as a twenty-seven-year-old newcomer to New York, having had it in mind since 1912. The Glass could not appear more different from the Readymades contemporary to it: complicated to manufacture, replete with narrative, and deeply entangled with art and science.

The Glass is also closely involved with words; Duchamp prepared a voluminous body of notes that articulate the narrative described by the full title of the Glass. He published ninety-four of these notes in individual facsimiles in 1934 in The Green Box, and they permit a tentative reading of the imagery of the Glass. As described in his notes, Duchamp's "delay in glass" chronicles the state of perpetual desire involving the bride, depicted in the upper panel, and the circle of nine uniformed bachelors arrayed in the lower. Duchamp devised an elaborate iconography to demonstrate the erotic proceedings and characterize the unfortunate actors. Every visual element of the Glass is the result of meticulous studies, calculations, and experiments.

In 1923 Duchamp declared the Glass "definitively unfinished." His decision was prophetic, as the final appearance of the work was yet to be achieved. That occurred by chance when the two panels were shattered while the Glass was in transit following an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 1926–27. Duchamp laboriously glued it back together ten years later, securing the original glass between new panes and housing it in an aluminum frame. Occupying the spot in the Philadelphia Museum chosen for it by Duchamp a half-century ago, the Glass continues to generate endless speculation and inspiration for followers of its enigmatic, amusing, and irresistibly compelling tale. Twentieth Century Painting and Sculpture in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2000), p. 57.