Edmond Marie Petitjean, Lavandières à la rivière, Oil on Canvas

Painter of landscapes and seascapes, he exhibited for the first time at the Salon of French artists in 1874. He obtained an honorable mention at the Salon of 1881 and became a member of this institution in 1883. He won the 1st class medal in 1884 and 2nd class medal the following year. He painted several Atlantic ports and stayed in Dordrecht around 1886. He participated in the decoration of pavilions for the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1889 and obtained a Silver Medal there. The following year, he exhibited in Munich. He was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor in 1892. In 1900, along with 26 other painters, he received a commission for a painting from Stéphane Adolphe Dervillé, chairman of the Board of Directors of the Compagnie des Chemins de fer de Paris in Lyon and the Mediterranean, to decorate the “Golden Room" of the Gare de Lyon restaurant Le Train Bleu. He painted Le Puy there , under the watchful eye of the architect in charge of decoration, Marius Toudoire, and obtained a gold medal at the Universal Exhibition. Like many painters at that time, Petitjean gave cartoons to periodicals such as Le Frou-Frou, L'Assiette aueurre, etc. On June 25, 1904, he married Jeanne Lauvernay, also a painter. He died on August 7, 1925 in his home.