Fresh Widow is one of Duchamp’s “readymades”—commonplace objects that the artist signed and then exhibited as art. Working with a dealer in 1964, Duchamp oversaw the production of eight reproductions of his original Fresh Widow, of which this is the second. The title is a pun on the phrase “French window,” which alludes to both the doors commonly found in Parisian apartments and the new generation of widows created by World War I.