Prostitutes of Storyville

Photographer John Ernest Joseph Bellocq (1873 - 1949) was born in the French Quarter in New Orleans. In his earlier days he was a bit of a dandy, but during the later part pf his life he lived alone and got a reputation for being eccentric and unfriendly, with little interest in anything than his photography. He earned his living mostly by shooting landmarks, ships and machinery for local companies, but he also photographed the hidden life of opium dens in Chinatown and of the prostitutes in Storyville - the latter which I want to show you some pics from. All the Storyville photographs are of women, posing either naked, clothed or wearing masks. These pictures were all taken in the beginning of the 1900s, and give you a bit of an inside look at how the prostitutes lived in New Orleans in those days. Many of the faces has been scraped out, but it's not certain who did this, whether it was Bellocq himself, or his Jesuit priest brother, who inherited the photos after Bellocq's death. Here are a few of them...

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Le Chabanais

In Paris, on 12 Rue Chabanais, close to Le Louvre, lies a very normal office building. What many people don't know though, is that this building once was Europe's most profitable maison close. or brothel, as it's called in English. It was called Le Chabanais, and was opened by Madame Kelly in 1878.

This luxurious house of erotic play was very lavishly decorated, with themed rooms such as Japanese, Moorish, Indian, Chinese etc. The Japanese Room even won the price for Best Design at the prestigious 1910 Paris World Fair!

And then there was the King's Room, that included a decadent, gilded royal bed and large mirrors placed both on the walls and the ceiling. This is where the future King of England, Edward VII, used to have some fun when he visited Le Chabanais.

Here the future King was known as Bertie though, and in "his" room, there was an ornate copper tub where he took champagne baths with the prostitutes, and a love seat, where he could enjoy two girls at the same time...

Other famous guests of Le Chabanais were Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec - who painted 16 tableaux for the house - and the poet Guy de Maupassant, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, and Marlene Dietrich. Sometimes the French government included a visit to Le Chabanais as part of the program for foreign guests of state. In the official program it was disguised as visit with the President of the Senate though...

During the WWII German occupation of France, twenty top brothels in Paris, including Le Chabanais, were reserved by the Wehrmacht for German officers and collaborating Frenchmen. During this time the brothels flourished, and even Hermann Göring visited Le Chabanais. In 1946 the legal brothels were closed by law. Their collaboration with the Germans was part of the reason...

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