The son of a wallpaper manufacturer in Mulhouse, Filiger first studied decorative arts before specializing in painting at the Académie Colarossi in Paris. He exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1889 and 1890. He arrived in Pont-Aven in 1888 and went on to Le Pouldu staying at the Buvette de la Plage where Gauguin was also a guest. Other artists who joined the colony in the late 1880s and early 1890s included Paul Sérusier, Charles Laval, Meijer de Haan, Armand Séguin, Henry Moret and Émile Jourdan. From 1890, he received a monthly payment of 100 francs from the artists' patron Count Antoine de La Rochefoucauld who was thus able to select Filiger's best works for himself while the remainder were exhibited at Le Barc de Boutteville, Le Salon de la Rose + Croix and other Paris galleries.