A private house built behind the Madeleine for a Swiss-born banker who wanted a setting for his paintings and antiquities. Its street front looks to Quattrocento Florence rather than to Paris, and the French state lists it as a historic monument.
At a glance
The Hôtel de Pourtalès stands at 7 rue Tronchet, a few steps north of the Madeleine church. It was built in 1838–1839 by Félix Duban, the architect of the École des Beaux-Arts, for Count James-Alexandre de Pourtalès, a collector of Old Master paintings and ancient sculpture. The national heritage register describes its façade as a rare one, recalling the palaces of fifteenth-century Florence. The building was remodelled in the 1860s by Hippolyte Destailleur, was entered on the list of historic monuments in 2002, and today houses a small hotel of suites and apartments.
Key facts
- Where: 7 rue Tronchet, 75008 Paris (Quartier de la Madeleine)
- Built: 1838–1839; modified 1865–1866 and 1869–1870
- Architect: Félix Duban; later alterations to the decoration by Hippolyte Destailleur
- Built for: Count James-Alexandre de Pourtalès (1776–1855), banker and art collector
- Protection: inscribed as a monument historique on 17 September 2002 (Mérimée PA00088832), covering the whole building and its plot
- Current use: boutique hotel of suites and apartments
- Coordinates: 48.871453, 2.325199 · open in Google Maps
History
James-Alexandre de Pourtalès was Swiss-born, from a family of Protestant bankers, and settled in Paris in 1815. Over the following decades he built one of the notable private collections of his time: antiquities gathered on journeys to Greece and Italy, and a gallery of Old Master paintings that included works attributed to Titian, Veronese and Giovanni Bellini. A collection of that kind needed a house designed around it.
He commissioned Félix Duban, the architect then working on the École des Beaux-Arts, and the house went up in 1838–1839 on rue Tronchet. Duban gave the count a palace in the Florentine manner, with a rusticated ground floor and Corinthian pilasters on the street, and a monumental staircase leading up to the apartments and to the rooms that held the collection.
The count died in 1855. In accordance with his wishes the collection was dispersed at auction in 1865. The house itself remained and was altered in 1865–1866 and again in 1869–1870; the heritage record attributes the changes to the decoration to Hippolyte Destailleur. The Ministry of Culture inscribed the entire building as a historic monument on 17 September 2002. It now operates as a hotel of eleven suites and apartments.
What you see
The photograph shows the inner courtyard. At ground level runs an arcade in pale dressed stone: round arches separated by engaged columns with Corinthian capitals, each column standing on a tall square base. On top of the capitals, at the level where the stone storey ends, sit dark antique-style busts, one above each column, looking out over the court. The arches are filled with black-framed glazing, so the arcade reads today as a row of large windows and doors.
Above the stone storey the walls are rendered white, with the windows framed in stone. A band of carved foliage runs beneath the cornice, and above it rises a steep slate mansard with stone dormers. The street front on rue Tronchet, which the photograph does not show, is described by the Paris-Promeneurs survey as rusticated at ground level, with Corinthian pilasters and a frieze of scrolling foliage under the cornice.
Practical information
- The building is a private hotel; the courtyard and interiors are open to guests, not to the public.
- The street front can be seen at any time from rue Tronchet.
- Ten minutes is enough to look at the façade from across the street.
Getting there
The nearest Métro station is Madeleine (lines 8, 12 and 14), about two minutes on foot: walk north from the place de la Madeleine into rue Tronchet. Havre-Caumartin and the RER A at Auber are a short walk further north, and Saint-Lazare station is about ten minutes away.
Nearby
- The church of La Madeleine, at the south end of rue Tronchet.
- Printemps Haussmann, the department store on boulevard Haussmann, a few minutes north.
- Palais Garnier, the opera house, about ten minutes east.
Sources
- Ministère de la Culture, POP / Mérimée PA00088832, Ancien hôtel de Pourtalès: dates 1839, 1865–1866 and 1869–1870, architects Duban and Destailleur, the Florentine façade, inscription of 17 September 2002.
- Paris-Promeneurs, L’hôtel de Pourtalès: the count (1776–1855), his collection and its sale in 1865, the construction in 1838–1839, the street façade and the courtyard.
- Hôtel de Pourtalès, official site: current use as a hotel of eleven suites and apartments.
- Wikipedia, Hôtel de Pourtalès.
- OpenStreetMap / Nominatim: position, returned as Hôtel de Pourtalès, Rue Tronchet, Quartier de la Madeleine, Paris 8e.
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