Highlights

Etienne Adolphe Piot (French 1825 – 1910)

19th Century Fine Art Legacy

Piot is another one of those 19th century artists where a couple of details are uncertain. For example, in what year was he born -- in 1825, 1831, or 1850? I’ve seen all three of these birth years given. Also, is the artist Étienne Adolphe Piot the same as another artist named Adolphe Piot?

David Karel in his 1992 Dictionnaire des artistes de langue francaise en Amerique du Nord: peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs, graveurs, photographes et orfevresm, refers to him as Adolphe Piot, but that he is also known as Étienne Adolphe Piot; but there is no year of birth given. However, Mary Laguori’s blog Arte Classica e Moderne gives a birth date of 1825 for him. So let us begin.

Étienne Adolphe Piot was born in Digoin, Saône-et-Loire, France in 1825. As a young man, he moved to Paris where he studied under Leon Cogniet at the École des Beaux-Arts. Cogniet instilled in Piot a love of the human figure, of which he was to become a master. In 1850, began exhibiting at the Paris Salons (therefore he could not have been born in 1850), and he continued to exhibit there until 1909.

In 1864 Piot travelled to New York City, the same year that he exhibited a portrait at the National Academy of Design. He remained in New York until 1869 when he returned to Paris. An interesting side note: I came across a passage in The St. Johnsbury Athenaeum handbook of the art collection (2005) that mentions that Piot painted portraits of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, both Confederate generals during the American Civil War. The passage suggests that because Piot painted these two men that he may have harbored Confederate sympathies. I suggest that this borders on the speculative. Seeing that Piot arrived in the United States near the end of the Civil War and stayed for several years after its end and that Piot was well known for his portraiture, it is entirely likely that someone (now unknown) had them commissioned. I ask the question; would Piot have turned down any commissions while he was in the United States? Perhaps that is why he stayed until 1869. Just speculating.

Piot was unrivaled as a painter of the female face. His subjects were painted against a dark background which emphasized the mood created by the subject’s facial expressions. Not merely portraits, his paintings were homages to feminine beauty. His mainstay until circa 1870 were his beautiful portraits, after which, he added other subjects to his oeuvre, especially, children. This at a time when childhood imagery was becoming very popular.

During the early part of his career, Piot exhibited primarily the female portraits of his patrons, only later exhibiting works outside of portraiture, which have been highly praised. Getting back to the variants of his signature, he used the name “Adolphe Piot” until 1876, then began using “Adolphe-Étienne Piot” and “Étienne-Adolphe Piot after that.”

Etienne Adolphe Piot died in 1910, after a long career of painting and exhibiting some of the best female portraits of the Belle Époque.

Use only with the permission of Bedford Fine Art Gallery.

References:

Arte classica e moderna: Adolphe-Étienne Piot (1825 – 1910), Mary Laguori blog. Arte Classica e Moderne. Giovedi 11 Maggio 2017.

Karel, David, 1992, Dictionnaire des artistes de langue francʹaise en Amerique du Nord: peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs, graveurs, photographes et orfevres, Musee du Quebec.

La Gruta de los Lienzos (The Grotto of the Canvases), Julio 8, 2010, blog Etienne Adolphe Piot (1850-1910).

2005, The St. Johnsbury Athenaeum handbook of the art collection, St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, Saint Johnsbury, Vt.

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