The present pictures record the appearance of Paris after its transformation in the first years of the personal reign of Louis XIV. The last vestiges of the medieval city, the Tour de Bois, the Tour de Nesle, the Hôtel de Nevers and the last remains of the medieval castle of the Louvre, all shown in the painting of before 1654 sold in these Rooms, 10 June 1994, lot 4, have all been replaced by modern classical buildings, notably Louis Le Vau's south wing of the new courtyard of the Louvre and his Collège des Quatre Nations. The latter, now the Institut de France, is shown without its dome constructed shortly after 1668, as in a variant of the second picture in the Musée Carnavalet, Paris (B. de Montgolfier, Le Musée Carnavalet, L'Histoire de Paris illustrée, Un aperçu des collections, Paris, 1986, p. 36, illustrated in colour). That painting would appear to be by the same hand as the present picture, as would two pairs of variants of the present views, showing the dome completed, sold in these Rooms, 7 July 1972, lot 20, and 30 March 1979, lot 103