Ludovic Piette

1826 – 1877

French painter. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris during the 1850s under Isidore Pils and Thomas Couture. He attended classes at the Académie Suisse and made his Salon début in 1857 with The Scorpion Broom (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen). His early works were often based on literary sources and include The Phantoms (exhibited at the 1859 Salon) and The Witches Appearing to Macbeth (exhibited at the 1861 Salon). Piette only exhibited at the Salon on two further occasions (1872 and 1876), preferring instead to sell his work at auction in the Hôtel Drouot. In the early 1860s he abandoned literary subjects in favour of working directly from nature, a shift that probably relates to his developing friendship with Camille Pissarro . This association is first documented by Pissarro's portrait of Piette in his Studio (1861; private collection) and an important correspondence between the two artists from 1863 to 1877 survives. Piette portrayed Pissarro painting out of doors (c. 1870; private collection). He visited Montfoucault, Brittany, first in 1864. He worked frequently in Pontoise and Louveciennes.

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