Théodore Valério was born in the Moselle region of France and entered the studio of Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet in Paris in 1834. The two artists soon became friends, and in 1836 travelled together on a sketching tour of Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Valério made his Salon debut in 1838, at the age of nineteen. Active as a painter, engraver and draughtsman, he produced landscapes, genre scenes and military subjects. Although he lived in Paris, he was an inveterate traveller, and in the 1840s and 1850s made extensive tours of Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Romania, as well as the Balkans and Turkey.
