[3][4] In 1857 he joined the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris[5] where he became a student of Alexandre Abel de Pujol.

Whereas Orientalism generally gave a deliberately idealised or anecdotal picture of north Africa, Guillaumet's work was notable for portraying the harshness of life in a desert region.

The Sahara features the carcass of a camel in the foreground with a caravan – or mirage of one – on the horizon and empty desert in-between.

The article claimed that Guillaumet had left his wife and son to live with "a lady who was his senior by many years" but that a few weeks before his death he had shot himself following an argument with his mistress.

His tomb bears a sculpture by Louis-Ernest Barrias of a Young girl from Bou Saâda, dropping flowers onto a portrait of Guillaumet embossed on a medallion.