Eugène Lepoittevin (31 July 1806 – 6 August 1870), also known as Poidevin, Poitevin, and Le Poittevin,[2] was a French artist who achieved an early and lifelong success as a landscape and maritime painter.

He died 6 August 1870 at the house of his first daughter Eugènie and her husband, the tenor Léon Achard, in Auteuil [fr], which is today the 16th arrondissement of Paris.

[4] He was not, as is sometimes stated, a relative of Guy de Maupassant, who was a first cousin and close friend of another painter, Louis Le Poittevin [fr] (1847–1909).

[8] A younger contemporary described Lepoittevin as physically small and slender, temperamentally kind, alert and cheerful, silly or serious depending on the hour.

[17] At least two of Lepoittevin's diabolical albums were banned in France, including Charges et décharges diaboliques, which in 1845 was censored and then condemned to destruction as an outrage to public morals and good manners.

"[19] The Bibliothèque Nationale de France includes in its collection Diableries, an album of 20 of the artist's erotic lithographs, which is freely accessible online.

These included military scenes (the Battle of Wertingen, 1805; the naval combat off the island of Embro, 1346; the siege of Beirut, 1109) and the more placid Lunch Offered to Queen Victoria in a Tent at Mont d'Orléans in the forest of Eu, 4 September 1843.

He was particularly fond of the fishing village of Étretat in Normandy, where in 1851 he built a chalet called La Chaufferette, about a hundred meters from the house where Guy de Maupassant spent his childhood.

[7][21] A glimpse of his social life in Étretat, and his sense of humor, is provided by a lengthy anecdote recounted by the anonymous Paris Diarist for Dwight's Journal of Music, about a house-warming potluck hosted by Lepoittevin at La Chaufferette in 1851.

But our painter had made himself the friend, sponsor, crony, counsellor, and benevolent giver of old clothes to all the fishermen in the place, and could therefore be sure of obtaining the desired fish."

Then and not till then, we discovered that the famous fish was of clay, which the skillful Lepoittevin, unable to obtain the real thing, had modeled and painted with perfection sufficient to deceive anybody.

[24] In 1860, Lepoittevin was a founding member of the fashionable and influential club of Parisian artists, writers, architects, and musicians, Le Cercle de L’Union Artistique.

[26][27] In France, the Musée des Pêcheries [fr] in Fécamp has built a collection of the artist's works depicting the environs of Étretat, and in 2020 mounted the exhibition L'invention d'Étretat: Eugène Le Poittevin, un peintre et ses amis à l'aube de l'impressionnisme.

[28] The Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen holds a significant collection of drawings and sketches by Lepoittevin, and also the paintings Sancho et son âne (c.1847) and Les amis de la ferme (1852).

[36] After examining preliminary sketches and period photographs, and studying the artist's family and social circle, Lindon identified many of the figures, including the painter Charles Landelle, the illustrator and caricaturist Bertall, a gangling Guy de Maupassant, and Lepoittevin himself.

[39] Another essay in the book, "Les Bains de Mer, Plage d’Étretat: Enquête sur un tableau disparu" (the case of the lost painting), recounted the disappearance of this work after the fall of Napoleon III, who purchased it for 7000 francs after it was shown at the Paris Salon of 1865.

("Well…it seems that my article on this painting by Le Poittevin, whose price has soared, has borne fruit in putting this great artist in the spotlight..but what a pity for the Fécamp museum!")