The year 2025 marks a special anniversary in art history: 110 years since the inauguration of the term “readymade”. The word, borrowed from the fashion industry, was repurposed by the French artist Marcel Duchamp in 1915 and applied to manufactured objects displayed as artworks. As such it describes a genre that has since become almost ubiquitous in the modern gallery.

But no name day celebrations for this now-venerable art form can mask that it lies at the centre of a simmering debate, one now bubbling over from academic speculation into mainstream discussion. This article examines claims that a century of art historical narrative in fact rests on an act of sexism and theft