Born in Nuremberg in 1899, Vandier d'Abbadie grew up in Paris and studied at the École du Louvre under the Egyptologist and conservator Charles Boreux.
She then went on to the Institut Catholique de Paris and the Cairo Museum of Antiquities, developing a specialism in archaeological illustration.
Between 1932 and 1936, she and her husband, Egyptologist Jacques Vandier, excavated tombs around the ancient Egyptian village of Deir el-Medineh in the Valley of the Kings, under the auspices of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale.
Returning to Paris in 1939, Vandier d'Abbadie and her mentor Charles Boreux moved the Louvre's Egyptian collections outside of the city for safekeeping for the duration of the Second World War.
After the war she continued her work in Egyptology, contributing articles to both scholarly journals and art magazines, as well as assisting her husband, who had taken up Boreux's position as conservator at the Louvre.