Adolphe Appian was a French landscape painter and etcher.

Appian was born in Lyon and changed his name to Adolphe Appian at age fifteen. At the age of fifteen Appian attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts at Lyon which was an art school which specialized in training to decorate fabrics by a local silk industry. He studied under Jean-Michel Grobon and Augustin Alexandre Thierrat. Later he opened a studio in Lyon and worked as a graphic designer. He travelled to Paris to finish his studies and after he had exhibited a painting and a charcoal drawing in the Paris Salon in 1853 he became friends with Camille Corot and Charles-François Daubigny who greatly influenced his style. Appian was elected a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.

In 1866, Appian's two works that he exhibited in Paris were bought by Napoleon III and by princess Mathilde. He painted at the beginning of his career atmospheric pictures in a monochromatic palette of the riverside of the Rhone and the south of France. In 1870 he changed his style to use brilliant and striking color in his paintings but he still continued to make charcoal drawings as well as small etchings of landscapes in the Barbizon style.

As an etcher, he had a distinct influence on the American artist, Stephen Parrish.