One of the famous buildings in New Orleans' French Quarter is Madame John's Legacy at 623 Dumaine St. It is one of the only French colonial residences surviving in the Mississippi Valley. It is now the property of the Louisiana State Museum system and is open to the public. The upper floor houses an art gallery and the ground floor contains exhibits tracing the history of the site.
The name "Madame John's Legacy" comes from the short story Tite Poulette 
The portrait he painted of life in the old French colony was so unusual to the readers of the Northern newspapers in which they were originally serialized that a New York paper sent a reporter to New Orleans to see if such people and places really existed. He wrote back that such people and places did exist and that the building described as Madame John's Legacy was real, although it was inhabited not by "quadroons" but by a "nest of Italians who sell fuel by day and are up to God only knows what kind of nefarious activities by night".
One of the first things one notices when walking through the house is how small the rooms are, that and how they interconnect without hallways. This gives the interior of the house a maze-like quality. The next thing one notices, of course, is the artwork. The exhibition on permanent display is titled: Goin’ ‘Cross My Mind: Contemporary Self-Taught Artists of Louisiana.
Of all the work displayed there the most striking, in my opinion, is that of "Prophet" Royal Robertson. Here is Robertson's bio from Dilettante Press:
"Prophet" Royal Robertson was born in Baldwin, Louisiana, between 1930 and 1936. He left school in the eighth grade. In his late teens, he left Louisiana and traveled along the west coast for several years. He returned to Louisiana to care for his aging mother and then married. After nineteen years, Robertson's marriage soured, and his wife left him, an event which continued to haunt him until his death in 1998. Although he had already trained as a commercial sign painter, in 1978 he began studying studio art via a correspondence course he saw advertised on the back of a matchbook. Soon thereafter he began decorating his house inside and out with hundreds of drawings and signs denouncing the "treachery" of his former wife and most other women as the source of all male difficulties, most specifically his own. His fury gradually took on the status of a mental illness, in which he imagined himself to be the victim of an evil worldwide female conspiracy with science-fiction overtones. Robertson had keen interests in astrology, numerology, and religious cults of all kinds.
"Prophet" Royal Robertson was born in Baldwin, Louisiana, between 1930 and 1936. He left school in the eighth grade. In his late teens, he left Louisiana and traveled along the west coast for several years. He returned to Louisiana to care for his aging mother and then married. After nineteen years, Robertson's marriage soured, and his wife left him, an event which continued to haunt him until his death in 1998. Although he had already trained as a commercial sign painter, in 1978 he began studying studio art via a correspondence course he saw advertised on the back of a matchbook. Soon thereafter he began decorating his house inside and out with hundreds of drawings and signs denouncing the "treachery" of his former wife and most other women as the source of all male difficulties, most specifically his own. His fury gradually took on the status of a mental illness, in which he imagined himself to be the victim of an evil worldwide female conspiracy with science-fiction overtones. Robertson had keen interests in astrology, numerology, and religious cults of all kinds.
Robertson died in 1998 but not before he was able to reconcile with his children. Robertson's work is still available and his magic marker, colored pencil and ball point pen drawings on poster-board generally sell for between $400.00 to $800.00.
My favorite Robertson work is a colored pencil and magic marker drawing of the artist on his knees with two angels hovering his head discussing how his treacherous wife had maliciously ruined him, broke his heart and left him with nothing. The work is entitled "I Was So Hungry, Lord, and There Was No Foods".
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