Pierre Lanith PETIT, born August 15, 1831 in Aups and died February 16, 1909 in Paris, is a French photographer. Pierre PETIT learns photographic technique with Eugène DISDERI, the inventor of the business card (carte de visite) photo. He is nicknamed "Collodion the Hairy". He set up his studios in Paris in 1858 at no 31 rue Cadet. He opened a workshop in Baden and another in Marseille. On his business card we can read: “Photographer of the French Episcopate, of the Lycées and Schools of France, of the Faculty of Medicine and of the Société des gens de lettres”. In 1859, he embarked on an ambitious project for the Galerie des hommes du jour, made up of portraits accompanied by biographical sketches of personalities at the center of current entertainment, culture and political life. This work launched his notoriety and he joined forces with Antoine TRINQUART until 1861. In 1862, Pierre PETIT initiated a lawsuit, which he lost, against his former partner Antoine TRINQUART, who had set up a photographic studio under the New Ateliers sign, less than a thousand meters from that of PETIT, rue Cadet. The same year, he was appointed photographer of the Episcopate and religious orders, and he produced a series of portraits of ecclesiastics throughout France. The imperial commission appointed him official photographer of the Universal Exhibition of 1867 in Paris where he took 12,000 pictures. He contributed to the siege of Paris and to the Commune through his photographic testimony by taking pictures like those of the rue de Rivoli gutted by bombs or scenes from the battlefield of Ivry. In 1875 he joined the French Society of Photography and became the official photographer of several institutions including the Faculty of Medicine. He went to the Jardin d'Acclimatation to photograph the representatives of various tribes who were then exhibited there. From 1871 to 1884, he was commissioned by the State to follow the construction work of the Statue of Liberty in the Parisian studio of Auguste BARTHOLDI before his expedition to New York. He photographed the head of the statue exhibited at the Universal Exhibition of 1878 in Paris. He was appointed Knight of the Legion of Honor on July 23, 1881.