Tears of Eros is an antique erotica curiosity shop in the heart of Paris. Open only by appointment, it is curated and run by Alexandre Dupouy. Alexandre has archived thousands of photographs, illustrations, books, ephemera and sexual objet d'art: he has been collecting for over fifty years.
Alexandre has edited and authored over twenty-two books on antique erotica, including Vénus au bordel, La Photographie Erotique, Le premier pornographe, and L'album obcène d'un photographe anonyme. Perhaps the jewel in Alexandre’s crown is the collection of ‘Monsieur X’.
In 1975, an elderly gentleman contacted Alexandre and insisted on the two of them meeting to discuss something ‘special.’ The gentleman arrived with a collection of hundreds of photographs he had taken of sex workers in 1930s Paris. Box after box full of candid images of semi-nude women laughing, playing, posing and flashing the camera. They were taken inside a brothel on the Rue Pigalle, on the streets, in a car and alfresco in the surrounding countryside. The gentleman explained that wanted to pass on the collection before he died, on the strict condition he could remain anonymous. Alexandre agreed and the gentleman is now known only as ‘Monsieur X’. In 2014, Alexandre honoured Monsieur X’s request and published his collection as a book; Mauvaises filles: Portraits de prostituées 1925-1935.
- Whores of Yore
