Jean-Pierre Péquignot was born in Baume-les-Dames. He started his art studies in Besançon, but probably owed his taste for landscape painting to Joseph Vernet.

He went to Rome to study and there met Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson who, as the prize-winner of the Grand Prix de Rome, arrived at the Académie de France in 1790. They became lovers. Both had been David's pupils and they became fast friends, but suffered the consequences of the proclamation of the Republic and fled to Naples in January 1793, where Péquignot died fourteen years later. For health reasons, Girodet left the city in 1794, leaving Péquignot to settle there permanently.