Raffet was born in Paris. At an early age he was apprenticed to a wood turner, but took up the study of art at evening classes. At the age of 18 he entered the workshop of Cabanel, where he applied his skill to the decoration of
china, and where he met
Rudor, from whom he received instruction in lithography, in the practice of which he was to rise to fame. He then entered the
École des Beaux-Arts, but returned to lithography in 1830 when he produced on stone his famous designs of
Lützen, Waterloo,
Le bal,
La revue, and
Les adieux de la garrison, by which his reputation became immediately established. Raffet's chief works were his lithographs of the Napoleonic campaigns, from Egypt to
Waterloo, vigorous designs inspired by ardent patriotic enthusiasm. In this endeavour he was a contemporary of other French artist-lithographers of Napoleon and the French army including
Hippolyte Bellangé,
Horace Vernet, and Nicolas Toussaint Charlet. As an illustrator his activity was prodigious, the list of works illustrated by his crayon amounting to about forty-five, among which are
Béranger's poems, the
History of the Revolution by
Adolphe Thiers, the
History of Napoleon by
de Norvins, the great
Walter Scott by
Auguste Defauconpret, the French
Plutarch and
Frédéric Bérat's
Songs. He went to Rome in 1849, was present at the siege of Rome, which he made the subject of some lithographs, and followed the Italian campaign of 1859, of which he left a record in his ''Episodes de la campagne d'Italie de 1859''. His portraits in pencil and water-colour are full of character. He died at Genoa in 1860. In 1893 a monument by
Emmanuel Frémiet was unveiled in the Jardin de l'Infante at the
Louvre, Paris. The statue was removed and melted down during the nazi occupation of Paris. == Works ==