François Lanfant studied under Ary Scheffer. He went to Africa and took part in the Algerian campaign led by General Bugeaud and the duke of Aumale. After being discharged in 1842 he was employed as a draughtsman by the Swiss naturalist Agassiz and travelled from Naples to Mulhouse.

Having set up a studio on the Boulevard des Italiens in Paris, he took on Mlle Ségalas, the daughter of the surgeon to Napoleon III, as his student. He lived for a time in England, then in Barbizon. In 1868 he went to Rennes where he met Gustave Courbet, and the two of them went to Trouville. He travelled by boat to Le Havre where he met a former actress friend, and decided to settle finally there, selling his work to rich merchants.