Special thanks to the Microsoft Corporation for permission to use following biographical information from the Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2001:

Gustave Moreau was a French painter, born in Paris. He painted many literary and mythological subjects in a highly imaginative manner, using rich Oriental color harmonies. One of his most famous paintings is the watercolor Apparition (1876, Louvre, Paris), a dazzling scene from the legend of Salome, which is a recurrent theme in Moreau's works. His Oedipus and the Sphinx (1864, Metropolitan Museum, New York City) has a strangely decadent quality. Many of his most important paintings are in the MusÊe National Gustave Moreau, the artist's former house and studio in Paris. As a leading professor of the êcole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, he taught two important compatriots, Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault.

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