Gustave Moreau first rose to fame with the exhibition in the 1864 Salon of his Oedipe et le sphinx, though, from the 1880s onwards, he increasingly shrank from public exhibition. This enormous house in Nouvelle Athens with soaring ceilings, which had been his childhood home, became his increasing focus during this period of his life. In 1895, he commissioned the young architect Albert Lafon to convert it from hôtel particulier into a museum including a dedicated gallery space, private domestic quarters and studio. The latter extended over the second and third floor, connected by a small staircase, providing space for hundreds of paintings and thousands of drawings.
In 1897, Moreau decided to bequeath the house and its contents to the French nation, in the hope that its preservation in total would 'allow the public to appreciate the culmination of the artist's lifelong work and labour'. When it opened to the public in 1903, the Musée Moreau had in its collection some 14,000 works. The museum appears today much as it did then, and includes a major collection of paintings by Moreau. If you prefer architecture over paintings, all the more reason to tour this spectacular space.
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