Prosper Baccuet

In 1813, before he was quite sixteen, he enlisted as a quartermaster in the artillery train of the Garde Napolitaine; a unit of the short-lived Napoleonic Kingdom of Naples.

That guard was dissolved following the July Revolution, but he was recalled to the 10th Regiment of cuirassiers a year later and was promoted to captain shortly thereafter.

Parallel to his military career, when he was stationed in Paris, he decided to pursue a long-standing interest in art and studied with the landscape painter, Louis Étienne Watelet.

The following year, his artistic talents obtained him a position as an official painter with the Morea Expedition, from which he returned with numerous landscapes and sketches.

From 1841 tp 1845, he served in North Africa as a painter/draftsman with the Commission d'exploration scientifique d'Algérie [fr], and participated in an expedition to Kabylie.