Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic (17 December 1839 – 27 October 1889) was a French artist, archaeologist and patron of the arts.

His father was Louis-Joseph-Napoléon Lepic (1810–1875), who had a distinguished military career and was a close supporter of Napoléon III.

The following year, he gained notability for his sentimental etching For the poor, after which he undertook further training from Charles Gleyre and the academic artist Alexandre Cabanel.

[6] In 1883, he achieved recognition by being appointed an official marine painter by the state, following his growing popularity after the award of a medal at the 1877 Salon.

Lepic is shown gazing through opera glasses in The ballet from Robert le Diable (1871; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), one of Degas' earliest treatments of the subject,[8] and in quarter profile from behind in the Victoria & Albert Museum's larger copy (1876).

Notwithstanding his marriage in 1865 with Joséphine Scévole de Barral, the mother of these daughters, Lepic was later to take the prima ballerina Marie Sanlaville as his mistress and designed dresses for the ballets in which she danced, including the Harlequin costume for Les Jumeaux de Bergame.