In La Rochelle
Henri-Eugène Callot was born in La Rochelle on 20 December 1875 into an old local family. A painter of harbours, boats and life at sea, he exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon from 1898 to 1940, as a member of the Société des Artistes Français. In 1921 he was appointed peintre de la Marine, the official title of the French Navy’s painters. He died in Paris on 22 December 1956.
He has no connection with Jacques Callot, the 17th-century engraver of the siege of La Rochelle of 1627–1628.
The La Rochelle paintings
Port of La Rochelle (c. 1905)
Painted from a grassy clifftop, the picture looks across the bay to the port town on the horizon, where a white spire — the Lantern Tower — stands out. Callot used vivid colours, with yellow and green dashes worked into a dark burgundy impasto (oil on canvas, 46.5 × 61.1 cm, signed “h. CALLOT”).
Poster for La Rochelle
Callot also drew railway posters. This one, for the Chemins de fer de l’État and the town’s Syndicat d’initiative on the Place d’Armes, advertises “bains de mer” return tickets valid 33 days: through the branches of a tree, a sailing boat crosses the harbour in front of the Lantern Tower, the Chain Tower and the Saint-Nicolas Tower.
The motif today
In both pictures the Lantern Tower is the landmark of the town seen from the sea — as it was for sailors for centuries.
The exact spot where the painter set up his easel is not documented in our sources: the map shows the monuments in the picture.
Sources: BnF (data.bnf.fr) · Clark Art Institute · Clark catalogue entry (PDF) · Proantic · former VisitLaRochelle.com (poster). Checked 14 October 2026.