This private mansion was built by Boffrand in 1714 and bought by Eugène de Beauharnais in 1803. Renovated by Bataille, a neo-Egyptian portico was added on to the front overlooking the yard in 1807 while the interior was lavishly decorated.
The Green drawing room on the ground floor is decorated with landscapes by Hubert Robert and features a mantelpiece of antique green marble embellished with gilt bronze. On the first floor, visitors walk through the throne room, the pink reception room famous for its Italian mosaics, and last but not least, the magnificent Four Seasons drawing room. Its homonymous paintings were attributed to Prud'hon in the past but are believed today to be by Girodet, a more likely hypothesis. On the same floor, Queen Hortense's rooms are composed of her bedroom with Jacob-Desmalter furniture, a music room, a picturesque Turkish boudoir and a wonderful bathroom with inlaid marble floors and a copper bathtub.
Fredric-William III of Prussia bought the mansion in 1817 and set up his legation there as early as 1814. Bismarck also lived in the mansion for a short while in 1862. It became the German Embassy in 1871, was taken back by the French in 1945 before being returned to the Germans in 1961. It remains to this day one of the most beautiful testimonies of Empire furniture and ornamentation thanks to its extraordinary interior decoration.
Hôtel de Beauharnais
