Jean-Pierre-Louis-Laurent Houël (28 June 1735 - 14 November 1813) was a French painter, engraver and draftsman. During his long life Houël witnessed the reign of Louis XV, the French Revolution, and the period of Napoleon's First Empire.

He was born at Dalfsen into a family of prosperous artisans, who sent him to the city's drawing academy when he was fifteen.

Here he was exposed to the art of early Dutch and Flemish painters, which was to have a defining impact on his chosen specialty of landscape painting. In 1758 Houël published a book of landscape engravings, and in 1768 he painted six views of the Duc de Choiseul's property. The following year his influential patrons secured a place for him at the French Academy in Rome. ...