Duchamp’s Fountain was not the work of Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven

A visitor looks at Fountain (1917) by Marcel Duchamp at Tate Modern in London, 2008. Photograph: Nils Jorgensen/Rex

It would be a cruel irony if Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven was, in the end, remembered only for the false claim that she was responsible for the most famous work of conceptual art of the 20th century: Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (‘Sleep with everyone! Be embarrassing!’ – the dada baroness who shocked society, 31 May).

Originating in a campaign to discredit Duchamp and modern art as a whole, which hitched itself to the campaign to rehabilitate a forgotten woman artist and poet, the claim has been totally discredited – see atlaspress.co.uk/marcel-duchamp-was-not-a-thief