Lot Essay
Executed in 1970, Arsène Lupin (Le Problème de la Chambre Jaune) is one of a series of enigmatic drawings by Marcel Broodthaers, referring to the popular French detective novel Le Mystère de la Chambre Jaune by Gaston Leroux. Published in 1907, it was the first 'locked room mystery' crime fiction ever to be published, featuring a confounding villain that inexplicably vanishes from an attempted murder scene. It is a book that engages the reader in solving the crime, offering detailed diagrams and floor plans of the apparently impenetrable, locked, yellow room operating as the crime scene. It is this spirit of investigation that Marcel Broodthaers invokes in his drawing. Beneath a hand drawn triangle, filled with twelve letters along its edges, Broodthaers poses the following question: La Chambre Jaune en forme d'équerre contient 12 cadavres d'hommes et 12 cadavres d'animaux. Identifiez-les (The yellow room shaped like a triangle set-square, contains 12 murder victims and 12 bodies of dead animals. Identify them). It is a riddle that remains elusive, the viewer caught in Broodthaer's characteristically playful word game, studying the page to no avail. The title endorses this spirit, acting to confuse the viewer between Joseph Rouletabille, detective of Le Mystère de la Chambre Jaune and his fictional colleague Arsène Lupin, who featured in the contemporary crime novels of Maurice Leblanc.