Pieter Plas came from a well-known artist family from Alkmaar. His father and first teacher was the carriage and landscape painter Louwerencius Plas (1776-1847). The painter himself was also a carriage painter until he was 24 years old. After two apprenticeships in Hilversum with Willem Bodeman and with the animal painter Jan van Ravenswaay, he specialized in painting landscapes with cattle. The flat landscape of North Holland was often his source of inspiration. Pieter Plas had several students and was director of the drawing society 'Kunst zij ons doel' in Alkmaar.