He was the pupil of Léon Cogniet, Baron Gros and others in the École des Beaux-Arts.

In 1864 he became a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France, succeeding Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin.

Among his works are Heliogabalus (1841), Primavera (1846), Haydée[1] (1848), Lady Macbeth, and his masterpiece, Calling Out the Last Victims of the Reign of Terror at the Prison of Saint-Lazare (Appel des dernières victimes de la Terreur dans la prison de Saint-Lazare), with portraits of the most illustrious victims).

[2][3][4] Also notable are Vive l'Empereur, based on a poem by Méry about an episode in the battle before Paris, March 30, 1814 (1855), Marie Antoinette (1857), A Mass During the Reign of Terror (1863), Desdemona (1868), Lanjuinais at the Tribune (1869), The Madness of King Lear (1875), Charlotte Corday in Prison[5] (1875), Mater Dolorosa (1877), The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew and The Massacre of the Innocents.

He executed frescoes for the Salle d'État and the Galerie d'Apollon in the Louvre,[6] and for the ceiling of the Salon Denon.