Gustave Moreau made more than 1800 paintings before he died in 1898. 1200 of those -- along with 12,000 drawings -- still inhabit his home-cum-museum on a lonely 9th Arrondissement street in Paris.
Turning his home into a museum was not difficult. The living quarters are practically austere. Also: dusty. And the large studio rooms on the 3rd and 4th floor of the building are well suited for viewing as much as creating.
I guess that he was a symbolist.
Every wall is littered with ornately framed oft-allegorical paintings that are very good. However, It is not until I reached the final room on the top floor that I saw it.
It is this boxy cabinet. It is maybe 6' on each side with two doors on each side.
It has a keeper who works it. The keeper has a key that opens each side one at a time. When I stuck my head inside the box, I was not expecting the marvel of 19th century engineering that I found.
Within this box is approximately one hundred paintings all framed and on a unique hinge system (on their vertical axis) that allowed the keeper to flip through the ornately framed paintings much like a magazine. When we reached the end of one signature, the keeper took me around to an adjacent side of the box and we repeated the process.
I do not understand this box. So many paintings! A secret engineering feat for secret paintings secretly on display behind a keeper at this somewhat secret museum in Paris; that's what all of this is.
