Pils Isidore

Isidore Alexandre Augustin Pils was born in Paris on July 19, 1813, into an artistic environment: his father, Martin Pils, was a miniature painter, which allowed him to be introduced at a very early age to drawing and to the meticulous study of form. This close family connection to the arts fostered an early vocation.

In 1832, Pils was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he became a pupil of François-Édouard Picot, one of the leading figures of late Neoclassicism. In Picot’s studio, he acquired a solid mastery of academic drawing, structured composition, and the idealized nude. These technical foundations would mark his entire career, whether in his religious scenes, military paintings, or large decorative cycles.

In 1838, he won the Prix de Rome with his large composition Saint Peter Healing a Lame Man at the Gate of the Temple, now housed in the Louvre. This award enabled him to reside at the Villa Medici in Rome from 1839 to 1844. During these five years, he intensively studied the masters of the Renaissance, Italian frescoes, and classical antiquity. He produced numerous studies of nudes, drapery, and narrative compositions, which helped shape his pictorial language. The frieze-like structure and the fluidity of the poses—visible in your Bacchanales—derive directly from this Roman training.