Our monthly art series demystifies the artworks we love—or love to hate. This time, we tackle a piece that evoked confusion and repulsion
Think of a furry teacup and saucer, and you may find yourself questioning its practicality or cringing at its apparent absurdity. Whatever you feel, it’s far from the usual reaction that one feels when viewing an artwork. Unsurprisingly then, a lot of controversy met Swiss surrealist artist Méret Oppenheim when she debuted Object (Le Déjeuner en Fourrure)—a teacup, saucer and spoon wrapped in what was reportedly gazelle fur—in 1936 at surrealist art movement founder André Breton’s Exposition surréaliste d’objets (“an exhibition of surrealist objects”) at Galerie Charles Ratton in Paris.
The work’s French title, Le Déjeuner en Fourrure, translates to “the luncheon in fur”, so the art piece is also known as Fur Breakfast or Breakfast in Fur, which highlights its nonsensical quality and calls into question the functionality of a fur-covered cup, saucer and spoon. The contrast between feeling the tactile, sensual fur on one’s skin and the imagined feeling of tasting it or repulsion from feeling it on your lips demonstrates the characteristics associated with the surrealist art movement of the time, which often reinterpreted everyday objects in bizarre and logic-defying ways.
The deliberate nonsensicality of the surrealist movement can be better understood if we look at its origins: the movement was founded and developed between the First and the Second World Wars, a time of great devastation, turmoil and change. Such chaotic times led many to question known and established norms, and to reject rationality. From this rose the surrealist movement, which embraced absurdity and often created satirical art.
Surrealism soon spread beyond the art world to other fields, including fashion. One of the leading fashion designers of the time who embraced the imaginative freedom of surrealism was Elsa Schiaparelli—founder of the eponymous fashion brand. For her designs, she would often collaborate with well-known surrealist artists including Salvador Dali and Oppenheim. In fact, in 1936, Oppenheim had pitched the idea of a fur bracelet to Schiaparelli, who incorporated it in the maison’s winter collection of that year. The fur bracelet then made its way into a now well-known art historical anecdote, in which Oppenheim wore it to lunch one day with legendary artist Pablo Picasso, where they joked about how almost anything could be covered in fur. This conversation sowed the seeds of an idea that led Oppenheim to create Object (Le Déjeuner en Fourrure) later that same year.