La Cour de l'hôtel dit Colbert, rue de l'Hôtel Colbert

Emmanuel Lansyer's 1888 view of the courtyard of the Hôtel Colbert documents a historic Parisian building on the Rue de l'Hôtel Colbert in the fifth arrondissement, associated with Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's great minister of finance. The Left Bank street preserving his name was lined with ancient buildings whose courtyards retained the character of seventeenth-century Paris. Lansyer, devoted to preserving the visual record of disappearing old Paris, documented this architectural survival with his characteristic precision. The work is in the Musée Carnavalet.

The courtyard is rendered with careful attention to its architectural character — the proportions of the walls, the quality of the stonework, the play of light across the enclosed space. Lansyer uses even, diffuse light that allows architectural details to remain legible. The palette is cool stone gray and warm sunlit ochre.