Landon was born in Nonant-le-Pin and entered the studio of Jean-Baptiste Regnault, where he made a lifelong friendship with Robert Lefèvre.
[2] After his return from Italy, in the disturbed patronage conditions of the French Revolution, he seems to have abandoned painting and turned to writing, although he began to exhibit in 1795, and continued to do so at various intervals up to 1814.
[2] His major, on-going work comprised the Annales du musée et de l'école moderne des beaux-arts, published between 1808 and 1835 and running to 33 volumes.
An example of his popular works that has been recently reprinted was Numismatique du voyage du jeune Anacharsis, ou Médailles des beaux temps de la Grèce which was accompanied by an essay on connoisseurship of medals by Théophile Marion Dumersan and dedicated to Louis XVIII, 1823.
Anacharsis had recently been established in the popular imagination in a historical novel, while coins were among the few antiquities that the middle class might aspire to own.