Background
He came from a family of the minor nobility and his father was the Registrar of Melleray.
He came from a family of the minor nobility and his father was the Registrar of Melleray.
His first art lessons came from the Academic painters Thomas Couture and Isidore Pils. lieutenant was while studying with Couture that he met Édouard Manet, who was already experimenting with new styles. In 1857, he had his first show at the Salon.
He is said to have received a commission from Napoleon III to provide decorations for the apartments of Empress Eugénie, but there is no official record of this.
At that time, he began writing regularly to Pissarro, whose correspondence is an important record of the formative years of Impressionism, a period with little other documentation. While there, he served on the Municipal council as part of the Liberal Conservative faction.
As with many Impressionists, he tended to focus on landscapes with figures and cityscapes. Among his favorite areas for painting were Pontoise and Louveciennes.
In 1877, at Pissarro"s invitation, he participated in the third Impressionist Exhibition.
After his death, a retrospective of his work was presented at the fourth Exhibition in 1879. A street in Pontoise is named in his honor.