About This Artwork

Joseph Cornell
American, 1903–1972

Soap Bubble Set, 1948

Box construction
9 x 13 x 3 3/4 in.
Titled, signed, dated, and inscribed on back, center, on book page: SOAP BUBBLE SET (typed) / Joseph Cornell. (in artist’s hand) Joseph Cornell / 1948 / Upper level should contain / large blue glass marble,- / lower level, a wooden white / ball and a small (3/4”) blue / glass marble. If contents in / glass become deranged they / may be set in order by remov- / ing top of box. (typed)
Inscribed on back, lower center, on paper label: Delicate sprig of coral in glass should / be adjusted to show prominently in case / of derangement. (typed)
Lindy and Edwin Bergman Joseph Cornell Collection, 1982.1861

Medieval to Modern European Painting and Sculpture
Gallery 397

Joseph Cornell’s box constructions are poetic distillations of memory and experience, which combine a modern sensibility for space, form, and surface with a delicate attention to the associative power of objects. In Soap Bubble Set, a white ball rests precariously on a glass shelf in stark in contrast to the theatrical blue velvet background. Bearing resemblance to both a bubble and the moon, this ball seems to float in space above a clay pipe at the base of the box. Aside the white ball, a small blue marble alludes to a planetary or heavenly body circling around the moon. A larger marble at the top of the box, however, refers to the bubble of a spirit level, a calibrated glass device used for measuring the horizontality of surfaces. The reference to a spirit level illustrates Cornell’s concern regarding the derangement of the objects and their capacity for displacement.