Gustave Moreau (1826 – 1898) was a French painter, a precursor of Symbolism. Moreau’s work is somewhere between Romanticism and Symbolism. Moreau’s world is full of androgynous teenagers and fascinating and perverse women (like Salome in her painting The Apparition, but also Dalila or Deyanira). He also shows a certain predilection for the monstrous.

His interest in the Orient is evident both in the choice of subjects and in the decadent setting of his paintings (Jupiter and Semele, for example, powerfully evokes Indian art).