Pierre Puvis de Chavannes was born into a bourgeois family. His father intended his son to enroll at the École Polytechnique in Paris. After a prolonged illness, however, Puvis instead entered the Faculté de Droit. He became interested in art during a trip to Italy in 1846, and the following year he began studying with Henri Scheffer (1798-1862). Puvis returned to Italy in 1848 with Louis Bauderon