Shadows across Paris

Zodiac of Dendera

Occult vision of Paris inspired by Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt in 1798 and Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb. The former led to the Rosetta stone, Zodiac of Dendera and the Sacred Ibis. Carter’s discovery to a mania for everything Egyptian in movies, art, fashion and even furniture design.

The first Cleopatra movie

I love the idea of a comedy adventure in a ‘Cleopatran’ Paris. The capital of a Napoleonic empire dominated by Egyptian stele, lurking things in the sewers under the cobblestone streets, occult bookshops and an abandoned cartload of sarcophagi.  

The early action in Shadows and Pagodas unfolds in this weirdly skewed city: 

frompariswithlove

‘Eventually, she reached a dead end. And a shop. It had a drunken facade, bowed down by disrepute and a smell of damp animal hides. There was a door on the left and bulging shop window to the right, and hanging above the door was a lantern with a miniature sphinx atop, fashionably painted in glistening garish colours. Isabella went up to the door and cleared the soot off the plate: 

Madame Sebbotendorf of Ekatrinburg

Seller of Rare Books and Acquirer of Fine Curios

  Specialist in Root Race Antiquities

     Breeder of Lhasa Apsos of Distinction

Isabella turned her attention to the window, cupped her hands against one of its convex glass panels and peered in...’

Contemplating the secrets of the Ancients, 1798