“I don’t get it. Like, I could do that.” Who hasn’t thought this when confronted with a particularly minimalist artwork? For a specific and genuinely fascinating tradition in modern art history, the answer is: yes, you probably could. Readymade art — the practice of designating ordinary, unmodified manufactured objects as works of art — is one of the most radical ideas in 20th-century art. What’s more, the best place to find the raw materials for your own readymade masterpiece is at a flea market.
In the early 20th century, artists began deliberately rejecting technical skill as the measure of artistic value. Their motivations were serious: to question the value of unique objects, to challenge dominant art trends and to undermine the commercial art market. In particular, they wanted to create work that resisted becoming a trophy for the wealthy. The result was a total rupture with everything that had come before. A snow shovel. A bottle rack. A bicycle seat. Each, in the right hands, became art worth millions.
Found objects — also known as objets trouvés or readymades — are everyday items selected by an artist and designated as art without alteration. Today, readymade artworks sell for millions at auction. Marcel Duchamp’s Bottle Rack recently reached an estimated 13 million euros. Below, we’ve paired six iconic readymade works with their flea market equivalents — and what you might pay for each at a good brocante.
1. Porte-Bouteilles (Bottle Rack) — Marcel Duchamp, 1914
The Bottle Rack is widely considered the first true example of readymade art. Duchamp bought it from a department store near the Paris city hall in 1914 and declared it a work of art without modifying it in any way. The spiky, aggressive appearance of the metal drying rack earned it the nickname “Hedgehog.” Unlike his earlier Bicycle Wheel (1913), Duchamp left the Bottle Rack completely unaltered — making it the purest statement of the readymade principle.
📍 Location: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Norton Simon Museum, Moderna Museet and the Rauschenberg Foundation
📐 Specs: 50×33cm (1921) to 73.8×35.6cm (1963)
🏛️ Gallery price: Estimated €12.9 million
🛒 Flea market equivalent: €45–€250 (vintage bottle drying rack)
📚 Source: Wikipedia
2. En Prévision du Bras Cassé (Prelude to a Broken Arm) — Marcel Duchamp, 1915
A snow shovel with the title and “from Marcel Duchamp 1915” painted on the handle — that is the entirety of this work. Duchamp described readymades as “an ordinary object elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist.” The original later disappeared. Someone reportedly mistook it for an ordinary snow shovel and used it to clear the sidewalks of Chicago. The story is either a cautionary tale about labelling your art or an accidental conceptual sequel to the piece itself.
📍 Location: Replica at Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
📐 Specs: Wood and galvanised iron snow shovel, 132cm high — 1964 replica
🛒 Flea market equivalent: $30–$120 (vintage snow shovel)
📚 Source: Wikipedia
3. Indestructible Object (Object to Be Destroyed) — Man Ray, 1923
Man Ray’s most famous readymade consists of just two elements: a mass-produced metronome and a small cutout photograph of a woman’s eye attached to its swinging arm. Man Ray created it in 1923. Protesters destroyed it in 1957 — hence the original title Object to Be Destroyed. He subsequently made multiple copies and renamed it Indestructible Object. The metronome itself was probably secondhand when Man Ray appropriated it, worn and missing minor parts. That imperfection is part of the point.
📍 Location: Tate Modern London, MoMA New York, Reina Sofía Madrid
📐 Specs: Metronome with photograph on pendulum, 22.5×11×11.6cm — 1923–1964
🛒 Flea market equivalent: $15–$164 (vintage metronome)
📚 Source: Wikipedia
4. Tête de Taureau (Bull’s Head) — Pablo Picasso, 1942
Picasso’s Bull’s Head is perhaps the most elegant found object artwork ever made. In 1942, he spotted a bicycle seat and a set of rusty handlebars in a pile of junk, immediately saw a bull’s head in them and welded the two together. As Picasso himself told photographer George Brassaï: “The idea of the Bull’s Head came to me before I had a chance to think. All I did was weld them together.”
Art critic Roland Penrose called it Picasso’s most famous discovery — “simple yet astonishingly complete.” As a result, the work shows how the readymade tradition extended well beyond Dada into mainstream modernism.
📍 Location: Musée Picasso, Paris
📐 Specs: Bicycle seat and handlebars, 33.5×43.5×19cm
🛒 Flea market equivalent: $22–$180 (vintage bicycle seat) + ~$70 (vintage handlebars)
📚 Source: Wikipedia
5. Grapes — Ai Weiwei, 2011
Ai Weiwei assembled 32 Qing Dynasty three-legged stools (1644–1911) into a semi-spherical bowl form to create Grapes. Each stool represents a fundamental element of rural Chinese domestic life — craftsmen built them without nails or glue, and families passed them down through generations. In reconfiguring them, Ai Weiwei points to the speed of social and political transformation in 21st-century China. Moreover, local artisans made the stools using traditional carpentry and joinery techniques, so the work honours the craft even as it subverts the original function.
📍 Location: Private collection
📐 Specs: 32 Qing Dynasty stools, 191×184×151cm
🏛️ Gallery price: Sold for £437,000 in 2015
🛒 Flea market equivalent: $160–$250 (vintage Chinese stools)
📚 Source: Sotheby’s
6. Tableau-Piège (Snare Pictures) — Daniel Spoerri, from the 1960s
Swiss artist Daniel Spoerri is best known for his tableaux-pièges (snare pictures). He glues the remains of a meal — plates, silverware, glasses — to a board exactly as they were left, then displays the board vertically on a wall. The most celebrated example, made in 1964, preserves the remains of a meal Marcel Duchamp himself ate. It sold for €136,312 at auction in 2008. That same year, a second snare-picture from 1972 followed at €44,181.
The concept is straightforward enough to replicate at home — and the raw materials, as Spoerri would insist, are best sourced secondhand.
📍 Location: Levy Galerie, Hamburg (among other collections)
📐 Specs: Assemblage, 60×69.5×5cm
🏛️ Gallery price: Up to €136,312 ($200,580)
🛒 Flea market equivalent: From $12 (vintage pasta wheel cutter and kitchen utensils)
📚 Source: Wikipedia, Artnet
Frequently Asked Questions
What is readymade art?
Readymade art refers to artworks created from ordinary, manufactured objects. An artist selects the object and designates it as art — often without altering it in any way. Marcel Duchamp coined the term and defined a readymade as “an ordinary object elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist.” The tradition began in the early 20th century. Today, it remains one of the most influential concepts in modern and contemporary art.
Who invented readymade art?
Marcel Duchamp originated the concept. His Bottle Rack (1914) stands as the first true readymade — an unmodified everyday object he declared a work of art. His most famous readymade is the Fountain (1917): a porcelain urinal he signed “R. Mutt” and submitted to an art exhibition. Subsequently, Man Ray, Pablo Picasso, Ai Weiwei and Daniel Spoerri all worked within or adjacent to the readymade tradition.
Can I find readymade art objects at flea markets?
Absolutely — in fact, many of the original readymade artists sourced their objects from secondhand markets, junk piles and hardware stores. A vintage bottle rack, an old snow shovel or a worn metronome can all turn up at flea markets for a fraction of what their artistic equivalents command at auction. Moreover, antique bicycle parts are a regular find too. The objects themselves are not the art — the act of selection is. That costs nothing.