French painter, very popular during 1950s and 1960s in the high society. He was known for his women's portraits and nudes working in the style of Jean-Gabriel DOMERGUE. Pierre PIGET was born June 30, 1907 in the picturesque setting of the small village of Chaux-des-Crotenay. He will brilliantly integrate the School of Navy Officers in Le Havre to then pursue his itinerant career for a few years. From port to port, he will discover other landscapes, other lights, other civilizations, other women whose touch will eternalize with a lively and happy memory. Then his home port will be Marseille and its colorful personalities. Volunteer, after a long journey, he responded to the mobilization and throughout the war joined the 19th spotting battery. After the war, on board a boat, near Cuba, he will meet Ernest HEMINGWAY who will invite him to his hacienda in Havana, where he will make one of the most exceptional portraits of the navigator writer. In Venezuela, he painted the President's wife, idealizing her and hiding her overweight, like an official painter. His taste and talent for portraiture spread like wildfire and made him known in the celebrity and gentry circles. Later, he will follow his friends to Megève, Deauville, or even to Switzerland and will carry out with good grace all the portraits which will be ordered from him. Back in Paris, he joined the “Breton gang” and participated for a time in surrealist emulation. Very quickly, women catch up with him and invite themselves again to his paintings, famous or anonymous. In his studio in rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, once owned by Sarah BERNHARDT, he perfected the portrait of an elegant woman. It is this obvious and incredible faculty of introspection, ineffable charm, which will attract to him the models with the most prestigious names. This will notably be the case with Don Jaime de Bourbon (eldest son of Alfonso XIII), King Baudouin I, Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia, Princess Soraya, the Duchess of Segovia, Prince Ali Khan, Ernest Hemingway , Juliette Gréco, Rita Hayworth, Belinda Lee, the Duchess of Maillé, Jeanne Moreau, Michèle Morgan, Gérard Philipe, Annette Vadim, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, the Count of Paris, etc. In 1959, the Galerie Paul-Ambroise devoted an important retrospective of his portraits to him. Thus, although he exhibits every year at the Salon des Artistes Indépendants, he will withdraw with a bang the day he finds his portraits hanging near the toilets. The respect for others and the big heart he had to watch over them in a fundamentally chivalrous way, will attract him the sympathy and the friendship of an ever-alive Nobility, and among them, the unfailing affection of Don Jaime de Bourbon, legitimate heir to the Crown of France. Although attached to the modern values of the Republic, he will be very touched by the consideration given to him by this sincere friend, the latter will award him the title of Count, the knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece on the 13th. January 1969 and intends to seal with this ceremony of ennoblement, a pact based on honor and reciprocal esteem.