Lot Essay
While still maintaining the approach that he uses for many of his grandest subjects, here Girault de Prangey studies the façade of a simple and more domestic building type - the café. The lower windows seem firmly closed with solid wooden shutters, while the upper storey and the windows to either side of the central door have more transparent carved screens. The strong sunlight picks out the decorative lobed form of the ground floor window arches. The modest façade exhibits a harmonious symmetry that is shown perfectly by the flat, elevational treatment given it by the photographer.