A river landscape with a pyramid, with classical figures on a bank

Born in Baume-les-Dames in the Franche-Comté, Péquignot studied at the École des Beaux Arts at Besançon, before moving to Paris in 1780 where he trained first with Joseph Vernet and then in David's studio. He furthered his education by travelling to Rome in around 1788, where he studied at the Académie Française. It was here that he met and developed a close friendship with Anne-Louis Girodet (1767-1824), who arrived in Rome the following year, and was also born in the Franche-Comté. During the turmoil that followed the Revolution they fled from Rome in January 1793, travelling to Naples. Although Girodet returned to Paris in 1795, Péquignot chose to remain in the South of Italy, where he developed a Romantic style of landscape painting inspired by his surroundings and suffused with an idealised classicism, often incorporating mythological subjects. After Girodet's departure Péquignot seems to have lived a dissolute life, drinking heavily, and his career was cut short by his premature death in 1807. His works are relatively rare and the present work is a good example of his mature style. Péquignot used the motif of a pyramid beside a lake in at least one other work, Les aventures de Télémaque, in the Palazzo Reale, Naples (see E. B. Saiello, Jean-Pierre Péquignot, Turin, 2005, T.07, pp. 76-7.).