Institut suédois

The Hôtel de Marle features a long, pale limestone facade interrupted by tall, shuttered windows that overlook a hidden courtyard. Built in the mid-sixteenth century, this residence houses the Swedish Institute, the only cultural center owned by Sweden in a foreign country. In the late seventeen hundreds, the painter Mademoiselle Victoire occupied the top floor, where she famously struggled to pay her rent while creating portraits of the Parisian elite. Her debts eventually forced the owner to sell off the building’s elaborate wood carvings.