LEGRAND, Etienne-François

The h�tel was built from 1776 to 1792 for Alexandre de Galliffet, a baron grown rich from his plantations in the Caribbean. The building is now home to the Italian Cultural Institute in Paris.

Virtually the whole court fa�ade is a stately temple front over two storeys with a horizontal top, a scheme more appropriate to the decorum of public buildings than the residence of a social climber.

The picture shows a detail of the garden front.

In the 1770s Paris was being transformed at an extraordinary speed. Real-estate speculation was in full swing, driven by financiers, the nobility, and the clergy. Private residences were spinning up along the Champs-�lys�es, as well as in the entire faubourg Daint-Honor� area. The new residences included the H�tel de Gallifet, the grandest of all the surviving colonnaded Parisian houses of the late eighteenth century. It lies in the aristocratic neighbourhood between the rue de Grenelle and the rue de Varenne on the south of the Seine. It has an overly large, eight-column peristyle on the main fa�ade, plus a grand staircase set beneath the dome, and stucco decoration by Etienne-Fran�ois Legrand.

The photo shows the main fa�ade.

In the 1770s Paris was being transformed at an extraordinary speed. Real-estate speculation was in full swing, driven by financiers, the nobility, and the clergy. Private residences were spinning up along the Champs-�lys�es, as well as in the entire faubourg Daint-Honor� area. The new residences included the H�tel de Gallifet, the grandest of all the surviving colonnaded Parisian houses of the late eighteenth century. It lies in the aristocratic neighbourhood between the rue de Grenelle and the rue de Varenne on the south of the Seine. It has an overly large, eight-column peristyle on the main fa�ade, plus a grand staircase set beneath the dome, and stucco decoration by Etienne-Fran�ois Legrand.

The photo shows the fa�ade overlooking the garden.