His grandfather Sébastien André Gallimard, a trained coppersmith, made his fortune in Paris during the July Monarchy by producing gaslamps for outdoor street lighting.

After completing his education at the Lycée Condorcet, Gallimard studied painting at the École des Beaux-Arts.

He lived in a hôtel particulier at 79 Rue Saint-Lazare in Paris and owned a villa in the seaside resort community of Benerville-sur-Mer on the English Channel.

[6] Carrière also completed a portrait of Gallimard's wife Lucie,[7] who also sat as a model for Pierre-Auguste Renoir in 1892.

Gallimard's mistress was the actress and opera singer Amélie Diéterle, who was twenty-one years his junior.

[8] Absent from court at the time of the trial for health reasons, an arrangement took place in 1923 with the donation of a painting by Eugène Carrière to the French State.

Gallimard collected other works, including oil paintings and works on paper, from artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, El Greco, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Francisco Goya, Honoré Daumier (Sortie du bateau à lessive),[12] Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Eugène Delacroix and Jean-François Millet.

Other book projects included an elaborately designed edition of Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal, which he had adorned with pen drawings Auguste Rodin.