Louis-Auguste LAPITO (Joinville-le-Pont, 1803 - Boulogne-sur-Seine, 1874) House and garden, 1860 Prepared panel Signed and dated lower left: "Ate. Lapito. 1860" On the reverse, the mark : " MULLER / RUE NVES.St.Augustin, 25. / Paris " 33,8 x 48 cm Although Lapito completed his training with the history painter Heim, his vocation as a landscape painter was affirmed earlier, in Watelet's studio, where he entered at the age of 15. His qualities as a topographer made him appreciated by King Louis-Philippe and three of his works appear in the Château de Saint-Cloud. What does it matter if "the crudity of the greens reminds one of malachite" and if "the idea is absent" (L. Lagrange, L'artiste, 12 December 1858, p.226). All that matters is the obsessive precision with which the artist describes the flowerbeds, the size of the rosebushes, the design of the marquee, the shade of green used to paint the shutters and even this very sophisticated smoke evacuation device.