Marie Adrien Persac
Marie Adrien Persac (1823–1873) was a French-born American fine art painter, cartographer, photographer, and art teacher. Persac watercolored south Louisiana plantation houses and other aspects of the Southern landscape, and his work has much importance to Southern historians. His work was often signed, A. Persac. Early life Marie Adrien Persac was born December 14, 1823, in Saumur, France to Pierre Edouard Persac and Pauline Sophie Marie Falloux. However the family perpetuated rumors of being from Lyon and it's possible he lived there briefly after leaving home. Between 1842 and 1850, he went to the United States. His educational background is unknown. On December 8, 1851, he married Marie Odile Daigre, the daughter of a farmer in Baton Rouge and initially lived with her family in Manchac, Louisiana. Together they had three sons. Career In 1856, Persac along with William G. Vail opened a daguerreotype photography studio on Florida Street in Baton Rouge. The daguerreotype photography studio did not last long, and Persac went on to work as an artist and lithographer for the press Pessou and Simon. While working at the press he published Benjamin Moore Norman's 1858 lithograph Norman's Chart of the Lower Mississippi River, to which he added