Meret Oppenheim made Object in Paris in 1936 by covering a bought cup, saucer and spoon in gazelle fur. The set is instantly recognizable as tableware and immediately impossible to imagine drinking from. It is at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and André Breton gave it a second title, Le Déjeuner en fourrure.
Object is a Surrealist sculpture made by Meret Oppenheim in Paris in 1936. Consisting of a cup, saucer, and spoon covered with fur, it transforms familiar tableware into an object that remains immediately recognizable but becomes disturbing to imagine using. It belongs to the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The idea began during a conversation with Pablo Picasso and Dora Maar in a Paris café. Picasso noticed Oppenheim's fur-trimmed bracelet and joked that other things could also be covered in fur. Oppenheim extended the suggestion to a cup and saucer. She subsequently bought a tea service at a department store and transformed it into the sculpture.
The story is memorable because it connects an apparently casual exchange with a carefully chosen artistic transformation. Oppenheim did not simply preserve the joke. She selected objects whose normal relationship with the hands and mouth would make the substitution of materials especially consequential.
The work creates a conflict between different kinds of sensory anticipation. Fur can seem warm, soft, and appealing to touch, but those qualities become unpleasant when imagined inside the mouth. The cup's shape promises drinking; its surface frustrates that expectation. Recognition and refusal occur almost simultaneously.
That disturbance is Surrealist in a particular way. Surrealism did not have to build an imaginary world from nothing. It could take a familiar thing and make it show an unfamiliar side. Dreams, desire and unconscious association were its means of unsettling how stable ordinary experience appears.
The sculpture appeared in Surrealist exhibitions in Paris and New York in 1936 and became one of the movement's most recognizable objects. André Breton gave it the alternative title Le Déjeuner en fourrure, usually translated as Luncheon in Fur. Its small scale did not prevent it from becoming a major challenge to conventional expectations of sculpture.
Its fame has sometimes overshadowed the breadth of Oppenheim's work. Her career extended across six decades and included painting, collage, jewelry, assemblage, relief, and sculpture in materials ranging from found natural objects to bronze and semiprecious stone. The fur-covered tea service is therefore best understood as one concentrated example of her inventiveness, not the complete definition of her achievement.
Close reading
A cup, saucer, and spoon retain their familiar shapes under a covering of fur. These six views examine the places where that covering changes how the objects look and how a viewer imagines using them.
1.The rim no longer feels drinkable
Long hairs stand up along the rim and continue into the dark opening. The cup still presents the familiar invitation to drink, but the surface at the point of contact has changed. Looking at the rim brings the imagined sensation of fur against the lips into conflict with the object's ordinary use.
2.The handle survives beneath the covering
The small loop at the left makes the cup immediately recognizable. Pale fur follows its curve without completely filling the opening. The handle therefore remains legible as a place for a finger, even though fur now covers the surface a finger would grip.
3.Fur follows the rounded wall
The pale hairs across the front follow the curve of the vessel. Light and dark patches give the covering its own irregular pattern while the rounded outline still describes a manufactured cup. The two kinds of surface remain visible together: the regular shape of tableware and the uneven texture of an animal's coat.
4.A soft edge replaces a hard rim
The saucer's edge spreads into a fringe of individual hairs. That fringe weakens the crisp boundary expected from a hard dish and makes the object look less contained. The curved outline is still easy to follow, but its surface seems to extend slightly beyond the shape that supports it.
5.The spoon becomes a small pad
The spoon's oval bowl reads as a dense, soft pad. Its familiar concavity is harder to see because the fur covers the surface that would normally hold liquid. Placing it across the saucer brings the transformation close to the viewer, where the contrast between a utensil's purpose and its new texture is especially direct.
6.The handle extends beyond the saucer
The long pale handle crosses the darker saucer and projects past its edge. It gives the compact group a clear outward direction. The hairs lie along its length, so the covering emphasizes the handle's narrow shape even as it changes the sensation that shape suggests to a hand.
1936
In a Paris café, Pablo Picasso admires Meret Oppenheim's fur-trimmed bracelet and jokes that anything could be covered in fur. Oppenheim answers that a cup and saucer could be, then buys a tea service at a department store and does it.
1936
The work is shown in Surrealist exhibitions in Paris and New York, and enters the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. André Breton titles it Le Déjeuner en fourrure.
Museum of Modern Art
New York, United States
A public viewing address has not yet been confirmed for this holding.
Held by the Museum of Modern Art. Gallery displays change, so check the museum's own object record before making a special visit.
A teacup, saucer and spoon covered in gazelle fur, made in Paris in 1936. The set is ordinary tableware bought from a department store; the fur is the whole intervention. It is one of the most recognizable Surrealist objects.
Because fur feels one way to the hand and another to the mouth. It reads as warm and soft to touch, and repellent to drink from. The cup's shape promises drinking while its surface refuses it, and both reactions arrive at once.
From a café conversation in Paris with Pablo Picasso and Dora Maar. Picasso noticed the fur-trimmed bracelet Oppenheim was wearing and joked that anything could be covered in fur. Oppenheim said a cup and saucer could be, then went to a department store, bought a tea service, and made it.
André Breton gave it that alternative title, usually translated as Luncheon in Fur. Oppenheim's own title was the plainer one: Object.
Small. The saucer is 23.7 centimetres across, the cup 10.9 centimetres, the spoon 20.2 centimetres long, and the whole thing stands 7.3 centimetres high. MoMA catalogues the three pieces separately, with an overall height for the set.
No, though its fame can make it look that way. Her career ran across six decades and took in painting, collage, jewellery, assemblage, relief and sculpture, in materials from found natural objects to bronze and semiprecious stone.
Associated with · 1936
Meret Oppenheim covered a bought cup, saucer and spoon in gazelle fur in Paris in 1936, after Pablo Picasso joked in a café that anything could be covered in fur. The fur is appealing to the hand and repellent to the mouth, so recognition and refusal arrive at once.
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View artistThe sources below include collection records, catalogues, scholarly research, and primary materials that informed this page. They document Object, its making, and its place in cultural history.
The holding museum's record: the 1936 date, the café conversation with Picasso and Dora Maar, the individual measurements, and Breton's alternative title.
Surrealism's interest in making familiar things disclose unfamiliar possibilities, through dreams, desire and unconscious association.
MoMA's retrospective of Oppenheim, on the six decades and the range of media her career covered beyond this one object.
On the object's continuing power to provoke, and on how thoroughly it has overshadowed the rest of her work.
These references provide the documented foundation for this work's history and interpretation. Claim-level citations remain attached to the specific claims they support.
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