Ferdinand-Sigismond BACH, known as Ferdinand BAC was a German-French cartoonist, artist and writer mosly known for his caricatures, which appeared in popular journals. He also wrote voluminously about social, historical and political subjects. In mid-life, he began a career as a landscaper for which he is also recognized. But today his work has been largely forgotten. Ferdinand Sigismond BACH was born into a special family scene because his father Karl Philipp Heinrich BACH (1811-1870), geologist, cartographer and landscape architect, was the illegitimate son of Jérôme BONAPARTE, king of Westphalia, and Ernestine de PUCKLER-LIMBOURG, Countess of Löwenstein. Ferdinand was born in 1859 from his father's second marriage with Sabina Ludovica de STETTEN (1817-1904), the illegitimate daughter of Baron Sigismond Ferdinand STETTEN. Ferdinand BACH is therefore the first cousin of Napoleon III, but will be raised on the fringes of the court of the Second Empire. However, the family, who lives in Germany, comes every year to stay in France, at the Palais Royal and Saint-Cloud. It is there that young Ferdinand observes the political and artistic figures that his parents meet. Ferdinand studied in Stuttgart until the sudden death of his father in 1870 (at the time of the fall of Napoleon III). In 1873, he and his mother left Germany to settle in Paris where he enrolled in Ernest RENAN's classes at the Calarossi Painting Academy and worked with the painter Bastien-Lepage. In 1876, at the age of 17, he left home for good for a slightly more bohemian life. He crossed Tyrol on foot, reached Venice where he met Richard Wagner, and stayed in Italy for more than a year. Returning to Paris in 1880, Ferdinand was introduced to social and intellectual circles by the man of letters, Arsène HOUSSAYE, a friend of his father. He meets Victor Hugo, Villiers de l'Isle Adam, Théodore de Banville but particularly the French illustrator, caricaturist, engraver, journalist and novelist Albert ROBIDA. The latter, who is also the director of the newspaper "La Caricature", immediately recognized his talent as an illustrator and published his first drawings under the name "Ferdinand Bach". Around 1882/83, Ferdinand Frenchified his name to Bac. He became the official designer of “little women” in the world of gallantry and established himself as one of the first cartoonists and caricaturists of his time. For almost thirty years, humorous and humorous drawings and especially the “little women of Bac” were everywhere in the press: La vie Parisienne, L’Art et la Mode, La Caricature, le journal, Le Frou Frou, La Vie en Rose, Le Figaro Illustré and Le Petit Marseillais. Bac was so published that he signed some of these drawings under the pseudonym Cab. He also designed the poster for her first show in Paris for the dancer Loïe FULLER. He also created three posters (now highly sought after) for Yvette GUILBERT, his neighbor in Montmartre, which advertise his shows at La Scala, Les Ambassadeurs and de l'Horloge. He is a handsome man, his talent is recognized and he is courted by all of Paris. Ferdinand married for the first time, on August 12, 1899, to a young and charming actress, Alice Didier, known as May. He divorced financially on July 23, 1904. Doubting himself, his work, Parisian life and a fragile health, from 1908, aged 49, Bac ceased almost all his publications in the press. He left Paris for Versailles, frequented the literary and artistic Salons and met Proust, Cocteau, Anna de Noailles, d'Annunzio also the musician Jules Massenet and Abbé Mugnier became his intimate friends. Doctors recommend that he spend his winters in the South of France. It was there that he began to design gardens born from his imagination and his travel memories. From 1911, Bac moved to Le Cannet and remodeled his villa at the request of Madame de Croisset. In 1912, the gardens of Villa Croisset for Marie-Laure de Noailles. A new career as an architect and garden decorator then began for Bac. Close to Martine de Béhague, Bac attended the restoration of the park of the Château de Fleury, restored by the countess in 1913. He stayed there during the war in 1915 (during which he produced several albums of caricatures) and perhaps participated in being in the development of the Persian garden designed by Martine de Béhague after the conflict. In 1918, at the age of 60, Ferdinand BACH moved in with his friends Ladan-Bockairy in the Superintendence buildings in Compiègne. He redesigned this magnificent hotel and designed the gardens. It is for his patrons and friends that Bac will create his masterpiece, “Les Colombières” on the heights of Menton. Les Colombières has been classified as a historic monument of France since 1991. Until the end of his life, Bac continued to travel, write, draw, reflecting on the political and historical future of the world. His always lively mind allows him to draw and comment on the books that are sent to him. Although of a restless nature, he had endeavored at a very young age to bequeath part of his work to numerous museums and libraries; each document is annotated by him and perfectly archived. He died at the age of 93, on November 18, 1952, in Compiègne, four days after the death of his friend Émile Ladan-Bockairy. He is buried in Colombières in a mausoleum alongside the Ladan-Bockairy couple. The collection of his workshop was sold in Paris on March 30, 2018.