A student of Pierre Révoil in Lyon, Pierre Bonirote met Hippolyte Flandrin and Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres in Italy, who recommended him to the Duchess of Plaisance to found a painting school in Athens, which he would direct from 1840 to 1843 before returning to France.

His paintings bear witness to both the precision and softness of the touch of the Lyon School and the nostalgia for the light of Greece, as shown in this 'Evening Prayer', exhibited at the Salon of 1847 and thus described in the booklet: "The shepherds from around Athens, after having parked their flocks in the ruins of the theater of Herodes Atticus, at the foot of the Acropolis, gather as a family; the oldest of them prays accompanied by a trichord, a type of ant...