Puvis de Chavannes by François Crastre — Read

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes was born at Lyons, December 14, 1824. His parents were in affluent circumstances and were connected with one of the old Burgundian families. His father pursued the vocation of chief engineer of mines, at Lyons. In the registry of births, in which the new-born child was entered, the father is designated simply by the name of Marie-Julien-Cesar Puvis. The honourable title of "de Chavannes," claimed later and with good right by the family, was confirmed to him by a decree of the Court of Lyons, bearing date of May 20, 1859.

Young Puvis de Chavannes was sent, first to the Lycee at Lyons, later to the Lycee Henri IV, at Paris. But nothing either in the boy's tastes or in his aptitudes gave any hint of his future vocation; he showed no special inclination for drawing, nor even for art in general. Son of a mining engineer, he applied himself naturally to the exact sciences; and he would probably have donned the uniform of a polytechnic student, had it not been for an illness which the family looked upon as most unfortunate, but which posterity regards as providential. The young man was forced to interrupt his studies and bid good-bye to mathematics. Two years later he took a trip to Italy, in the company of a young married couple. In true tourist fashion he made the rounds of museums and churches; he conscientiously inspected the great masterpieces in which the peninsula abounds; but, by his own admission, he brought back no real profit from his travels. They were not, however, entirely futile, since they awakened in him the desire to become a painter. Upon returning to France he announced his determination to his family, and having won their consent, entered the studio of Henri Scheffer, brother of Ary Scheffer.