Eugène Léon Labitte was born on October 7, 1858 in Clermont, Oise. He moved only a short distance south to Paris, to study under the history and portrait painter Fernand-Anne-Pieste Cormon. This training instilled in him the traditional craft techniques of the great French painters and laid the foundations on which Labitte would build his career. He devoted himself primarily to the painting of landscapes, many of which were painted in Brittany.

During the 1880s and 1890s, Labitte worked in Concarneau, where he concentrated on depicting field workers in landscapes and the fishermen of the villages. He established a studio at the villa Kerdorlett near Beuzec-Conq with the painter Henri Guinier. He exhibited with l'Uni...