The body of a piglet, the horns of a crustacean and, on its back, the fins of a red mullet for wings: the skeleton of a chimera stirs, grimaces and barks at the entrance to the Louvre-Lens. He intrigues this automaton, a contemporary invention of the National Museum of Natural History. Its repulsive appearance does not deter the curious from diving into the exhibition put together by Hélène Bouillon, chief curator and doctor of Egyptology.
The theme of the tour is the origins and destinies of fantastic beasts. A beautiful subject but a vast program, which embraces the ancient griffin as well as the quetzalcoatl, the Mesoamerican feathered serpent. And the Phoenix, a unique bird capable of rising from its ashes, or the half-leopard, half-snake serpopanthera that appeared on some Mesopotamian bas-relief. In his Book of Imaginary Beings (1957), Jorge Luis Borges listed 120 legendary creatures from mythology, folklore and literature. Hélène Bouillon therefore had to restrain herself...
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