Edmond Perrier's Victorian Museum

The picture of Dorian Gray is the only novel of Oscar Wilde which was published in its definitive version in 1891. This hedonist work earned him  great fame, but a part of the English public was shocked by the immorality of the hero. But the numerous debates renforced its success. At the beginning, Oscar Wilde developed his artistic theory, he said that "there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all..". In this novel the hero Dorian Gray is a dandy amazed by his own youth and beauty, and who lives a life of vice.

Basil Hallward, who was a friend of Dorian's, was fascinated by his beauty and thus decided to paint Dorian's portrait. Dorian was jealous of his own portrait and wished that the portrait would grow old instead of him so that he would always keep his teenager's beauty.