One of Marcel Duchamp’s reproductions of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, on to which he penciled a beard and mustache, has sold for €632,500 (around 750,000 US dollars) at Sotheby’s in Paris.
photo by Shutterstock
It was part of the sale of a collection of surrealist works owned by American Arthur Brandt, with 110 pieces fetching €3.9 million, including commission.
However, some standout pieces, including a work by Francis Picabia, which was estimated at €700,000, did not find a buyer.
Duchamp’s version of the Mona Lisa was one of the nine works in the sale by the French artist, who is seen as the father of conceptual art.
The Mona Lisa works are entitled L.H.O.O.Q, which in French sounds like the phrase “elle a chaud au cul,” roughly translated as “she’s horny.” It had a presale estimate of €400,000 to €600,000.
The version that sold late on Saturday was created in 1964 after the original 1919 so-called “ready made” piece.
Marcel Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q – Mona Lisa with added mustache and beard. /Photo via The Guardian
The other Duchamp pieces on offer at the auction included Boite-en-valise or Box in a Suitcase, which beat its presale estimate of €180,000 to €250,000, selling for €319,500.
The work is a portable museum featuring 68 of the artist’s most famous works, reproduced or miniaturized. Seven distinct versions were made in limited edition between 1941 and 1966.
A painting by Swiss artist Kurt Seligmann called Buste d’homme, estimated at €60,000 to €80,000, was sold for €181,250, “not far from a world record for the artist,” according to Sotheby’s.
Among the six pieces offered from artist and photographer Man Ray, The Lovers, a set of lips engraved in lead and then painted, accompanied by a rope, sold for €81,250, far above the upper presale estimate of €25,000.
LONDON (AP) — The BBC plans to ask a court to throw out U.S. President Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the British broadcaster, court papers show.
Trump filed a lawsuit in December over the way the BBC edited a speech he gave on Jan. 6, 2021. The claim, filed in a Florida federal court, seeks $5 billion in damages for defamation and $5 billion for unfair trade practices.
The speech took place before some of Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress was poised to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election that Trump falsely alleged was stolen from him.
The BBC had broadcast the documentary — titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” — days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election. It spliced together three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.” Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.
The broadcaster has apologized to Trump over the edit of the Jan. 6 speech. But the publicly funded BBC rejects claims it defamed him. The furor triggered the resignations of the BBC’s top executive and its head of news.
Papers filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Miami say the BBC will file a motion to dismiss the case on March 17 on the basis that the court lacks jurisdiction and Trump failed to state a claim.
The broadcaster’s lawyers will argue that the BBC did not create, produce or broadcast the documentary in Florida and that Trump’s claim the documentary was available in the U.S. on streaming service BritBox is not true.
It will also argue that Trump has failed to “plausibly allege” the BBC acted with malice in airing the documentary.
Attorney Charles Tobin, for the BBC, said Trump can't prove actual damages because he won reelection by a commanding margin, and carried Florida by 13-point margin, better than his 2016 and 2020 performances. He said the documentary also couldn't have harmed his reputation because it aired after Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including allegations he “directed the crowd in front of him to go to the Capitol.”
The BBC is asking the court to postpone discovery — the pretrial process in which parties must turn over documents and other information — pending a decision on the motion to dismiss. The discovery process could require the BBC to hand over reams of emails and other materials related to its coverage of Trump.
“Engaging in unbounded merits-based discovery while the motion to dismiss is pending will subject defendants to considerable burdens and costs that will be unnecessary if the motion is granted,” Tobin wrote.
If the case continues, a 2027 trial date has been proposed.
“As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case,” the BBC said Tuesday in a statement. “We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”
FILE - Pedestrian walks outside the BBC Headquarters in London, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, file)
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters while in flight on Air Force One to Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
