Deep inside the Musée de Arts et Metiérs, nestled amongst the displays dedicated to the development of technology and media is a small collection of the most curious objects. These complex and fantastically shaped creations were produced by a painstaking and largely unknown process on a mechanical lathe in the late 18thC by Françoise Barreau. Barreau a somewhat mysterious figure, considered his work as art, turning the most intricate constructions from a single piece of ivory. How he exactly made these objects is to this day unknown. He was highly secretive and legend has it would only hire deaf mutes as assistants, so as his methods could not be divulged.