This is Henri-Pierre Picou

Henri-Pierre Picou (Nantes 27 February 1824 – 17 July 1895) was a French painter. His oeuvre began afterward portraits and classical historical subject matter but he forward-looking moved upon to allegorical and mythological themes.

He was an academic painter and one of the founders of the Neo-Grec school, along later his close friends Gustave Boulanger, Jean-Léon Gérôme, and Jean-Louis Hamon, also academic painters. All of them studied in the workshops of both Paul Delaroche and later Charles Gleyre. Picou’s style was noticeably influenced by Gleyre. While the descend of the outfit generally painted classical and mythological subjects, Picou also acknowledged commissions for large religious frescoes from many churches, including the Église Saint-Roch.

His artistic debut was at the Salon in 1847. The bordering year he was awarded a second-class medal for his painting, Cléopâtre et Antoine sur le Cydnus. Also known as Cleopatra upon the Cydnus, it is commonly regarded as Picou’s masterpiece. This showing at the Salon in 1848 was written about by the critic Théophile Gautier, who felt that the subject matter was too ambitious, but also said that “As it is, it gives the best wish for the higher of the minor artist, and ranks among the seven or eight most important paintings of the Salon.” In 1875, the painting was exhibited in New York, and subsequent to found lodgment on the walls of a private art gallery in San Francisco.

Picou maintained a large workshop in Paris upon the Boulevard de Magenta, which provided him room to work on his spacious frescoes. His popularity continued to rise and he went upon to win the Second Prix de Rome in 1853 for his painting, Jésus chassant les vendeurs du Temple (The Moneylenders Chased from the Temple), and option second-class medal for his Salon painting in 1857. From his debut in 1847, he was a regular at the Salon, showing almost every year until his unadulterated exhibit in 1893. He has been called the most well-liked painter towards the close of the Second French Empire.