Hôtel d'Avaux, Paris

To the second edition of his book (1647) Le Muet added plans and elevations of a few very grand h�tels which were built. These include the Hotel d’Avaux in the Rue du Temple which has emerged from its recent restoration as one of the finest seventeenth-century houses surviving in Paris. The visitor enters through a door set in a lightly rusticated concave bay and finds himself in a large court articulated on all four sides by giant Corinthian pilasters. The effect is one of extreme grandeur, foreshadowing the work of the next generation of architects.

The engraving shows the court fa�ade.