Hôtel de Pourtalès

The Hôtel de Pourtalès was commissioned in eighteen thirty-eight by Count James-Alexandre de Pourtalès, a Swiss-born banker and diplomat. He hired the architect Félix Duban to build a private mansion that could serve as both a residence and a grand display for his massive collection of art. Duban designed the building in a neo-Renaissance style, incorporating arcades, pilasters, and an inner courtyard that mimicked the layout of a traditional Tuscan palazzo. The nineteenth-century poet Théophile Gautier was so impressed by the structure that he famously labeled it a true object of art.