Pierre Ciceri

Born in 1782 to a family of Milanese merchants who had emigrated to France, he studied drawing under the architect François-Joseph Bélanger and first came into contact with the employees of the workshops at the Paris Opera in 1806. He became a ‘peintre-décorateur’ there in 1810, then ‘décorateur en chef’ from 1818 - a position he held for thirty years. Together with Louis Daguerre, the pioneer of modern photography, he established dioramas and cycloramas as elements of stage design, for example for the ballet La Belle au bois dormant by Jean-Pierre Aumer to music by Ferdinand Hérold, Auber's opera La Muette de Portici and Rossini's opera Guillaume Tell (1829). His stage designs for Meyerbeer's opera Robert le Diable (1831), Taglioni's ballet La Sylphide (1832), Halévy's opera La Juive (18365) and Corallis/Perrot's Giselle (1841) were also widely admired. Appointed Imperial Court Painter at an early age, Ciceri was appointed Imperial Theatre Inspector in 1853. Ciceri died in 1868.