Readymades of Marcel Duchamp to turn up any identical matches to photographs of the originals. However, there are accounts of Walter Arensberg and Joseph Stella being with Duchamp when he purchased the original "Fountain" at J. L. Mott Iron Works. Such investigations are hampered by the fact that few of the original "readymades" survive, having been lost or destroyed. Those that still exist are predominantly reproductions authorized or designed by Duchamp in the final two decades of his life. Shearer also asserts that the artwork "L.H.O.O.Q." which is recorded to be a poster-copy of the "Mona Lisa" with a moustache drawn on it, is
Marcel Duchamp puns, and spoonerisms by the French surrealist poet Robert Desnos. Desnos tried to portray Rrose Sélavy as a long-lost aristocrat and rightful queen of France. Aphorism 13 paid homage to Marcel Duchamp: "Rrose Sélavy connaît bien le marchand du sel" ‒ in English: "Rrose Sélavy knows the merchant of salt well"; in French the final words sound like Mar-champ Du-cel. Note that the 'salt seller' aphorism – "mar-chand-du-sel" – is a phonetic rearrangement of the syllables in the artist's name: "mar-cel-du-champ." (Duchamp's compiled notes are entitled, 'Salt Seller'.) In 1939 a collection of these aphorisms was published under the name