Le Sphinx
At the end of the boulevard Edgar Quinet once stood an extravagant Art Deco brothel called Le Sphinx which featured Egyptian-themed rooms, chromium plating and a magnificent bar. Le Sphinx opened in 1930 with great fanfare and invitations were sent out to all the notables in Montparnasse. Men were encouraged to bring along their wives or girlfriends. Henry Miller was on hand for the inauguration and thought it a marvelous place. When you entered, he recalled, it was like going into a steam bath. The air was warm and rosy-scented. Visitors were greeted with the site of nude women casually mingling with clothed patrons at the bar.
Miller wrote promotional brochures for Le Sphinx and received a few francs for each new customer he brought in: “When the big new whorehouse opened up on the Boulevard Edgar-Quinet, I got a little rake-off, for writing the pamphlets. That is to say, a bottle of champagne and a free fuck in one of the Egyptian rooms. If I succeeded in bringing a client I was to get my commission.”
In the late 1930’s he would bring in Lawrence Durrell, who recalled spending some “fabulous hours with Henry Miller at the Sphinx.”
At its opening, Le Sphinx was the only brothel on the Left Bank and the first building in Paris to have air-conditioning. It closed in 1946 when France outlawed brothels. The building has since been replaced.
In a 1956 interview with Ben Grauer, Miller recalled his role in inaugurating the Sphinx. Click here to download an excerpt of that interview (MP3).
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| “Le Sphinx”, maison close (1938) © Roger-Viollet – source |
Prostituées au bar du “Sphinx” (1930) © Roger-Viollet – source |
Location
31 boulevard Edgar Quinet
Paris, 75014
map
2 comments on "Le Sphinx"
Very good review. There is another great picture showing Le Sphinx in Kiki’s Paris (Billy Klüver, Julie Martin, Kiki’s Paris, New York, 1989, p. 240) Also, Dan Franck did misspell the name of the establishment (“the Spynx”), as well as erroneously indicated the year it opened its doors (1931), “Miller also drafted the publicity brochure for the biggest whorehouse on the left bank, the Sphynx, whose doors opened in 1931.” (Dan Franck, Bohemian Paris, New York, 2001, p. 343)
Hi Yuriy,
Thanks for the references. I had a look at the book on Kiki and the image from page 240 is also available from “Paris en Images” — just follow the “source” link below the photos in this post. There are several more images of the Sphinx there as well. Additionally, the Tate museum in London has several sketches of the Sphinx and its denizens by James Boswell, available here, here and here.
