Emile-Edmond Peynot wasborn in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne. His aptitude for modeling and drawing was noticed by the director of his municipal school, who encouraged his mother to make him continue his studies, which he would take care of.

At the age of seventeen, he entered the studio of the sculptor Pierre Robinet (1814-1878) in Paris. Three years later, in 1870, Emile Peynot was admitted to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts where he was a pupil of François Jouffroy (1806-1882) and Ernest-Eugène Hiolle (1834-1886).

He had financial assistance from the department of Yonne in 1872 and 1873. He won the First Rome Prize in 1880 with the plaster bas-relief, The Prodigal Child. He stayed in Rome from 1881 to 1884 as a resident at the ...