Born into a modest family—his father, Pierre-Antoine, was a carpenter—Joseph-Louis-Hippolyte studied at the Lycée Impérial Bonaparte before being placed in a trading house. In 1816, he joined the studio of Antoine-Jean Gros, where he rubbed shoulders with future masters of Romantic painting.
His encounter with Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet proved decisive: sharing a common passion for Théodore Géricault, he discovered lithography, a technique that was then revolutionary. From 1823 to 1835, he published 15 lithographic albums on military and patriotic subjects that established his popular reputation.
His debut at the Salon in 1822 was crowned with a second-class medal in 1824. His masterpiece "Napoleon Returning from the Island of Elba" (1834) marked his official consecration and opened the way to prestigious commissions. The work, widely disseminated through his own engravings and lithographs, consolidated his position as a specialist in military art.
In 1837, he moved to Rouen as curator of the museum, a period of provincial enrichment before his return to Paris in 1853. Under the Second Empire, he documented the new conflicts with "Battle of the Alma" (1855), "Storm of Malakoff" (1858) and "Fight in the Streets of Magenta" (1861). The success of "The Two Friends" (1861) earned him the rank of officer of the Legion of Honor.
In his later years, he returned to his first passion with "Episode of the Retreat from Russia" (1863) and "The Cuirassiers of Waterloo" (1865). His artistic legacy, "The Guard Dies" (1866), was completed the day before his death. He left behind an exceptional body of work of more than 120 canvases and 800 lithographs, a unique testimony to his warlike era.
