Eros secret, objets érotiques à transformation

While the Bibliothèque nationale de France is exhibiting its Enfer (Hell), here is a book in the same vein. A red velveteen binding covers erotic objects from the XIXth and XXth centuries. and not the least interesting as there are objects of transformation, that is that only let the libertine image show once the false bottom is opened, the movement of a knob, the play of a spring. Groups of persons in bronze, susceptible of turning around, snuff boxes, canes in particular (one of which belonged to André Breton), fob watches, hand fans and cards to be seen against the light show the extreme inventiveness of certain crafstmen (or of those who commissioned them) in this type of pieces. The ensemble of 150 objects presented belongs to one single collector. The manner in which the author met him at the airport of Larnaca, then on a yacht in the Mediterranean sea, resembles more a novel by Gérard de Villiers than the preface of a curator but has its own touch of spice.

• Eros secret, objets érotiques à transformation directed by Véronique Willemin, éditions Humus, 2007, 208 p., 69 €, ISBN : 2-940127-37-9