When he still very young his father, Étienne-Louis Morel of Switzerland, moved the family to Paris to open a bank. He was enrolled at the prestigious
Lycée Louis-le-Grand, but he was dismissed for lack of discipline in 1824. He finished his studies at the
Lycée Condorcet (then known as the Collège Royal de Bourbon). In 1827, he enlisted as a pilot on a British merchant ship to learn navigation. Upon his return he began work at the family bank, but spent much of his time decorating the account books with ornamentation. His family then placed him with the banking firm of , but he soon renounced the profession. His artistic inclinations led him to keep company with the marine painter
Adolphe-Hippolyte Couveley. He briefly studied with several artists, and made trips to Italy, but his career began in earnest in 1830, when he accompanied an
expedition to Algeria and witnessed the actions of naval commander
Guy-Victor Duperré. He made sketches and created two paintings that were exhibited at the
Salon of 1833 with great success. He would be a regular exhibitor there from that time on. In 1838, he was commissioned by
Horace Vernet, Director of the
Académie de France à Rome, to accompany him in a French squadron to Mexico, witness and paint what would become known as the
Battle of Veracruz. The following year, he was part of a squadron commanded by Admiral
Julien Pierre Anne Lalande and debarked in Istanbul, where he witnessed a fire that broke out in
Pera, spread to
Galata and threatened to destroy the wealthiest part of the city. In 1840, he painted a scene depicting the remains of
Napoleon being returned to France from
St. Helena. He would later accompany President
Louis Napoléon Bonaparte on his travels. In 1845, he married Louise Françoise Aimée Ernestine du Chastel (1815–1876), the daughter of
Maréchal de Camp, . They had two children; a son and a daughter. in 1846, he was named a Chevalier in the
Legion of Honor. In 1849, he was appointed Deputy Curator at the Naval Museum in the
Louvre. Three years later, following the resignation of , he became the Director as well. He was named a
Peintre de la Marine in 1853. In 1854, he took part in the
Crimean War as an official painter and witnessed the
Battle of Bomarsund. Upon his return, he and
Jean-Baptiste Henri Durand-Brager published views of the coast of the
Black Sea. Shortly after, he visited Scandinavia, Normandy and
Brittany, where he painted scenes of old ships. In 1857, he was promoted to full Curator at the museum. He served as the first Mayor of the 20th Arrondissement of Paris from 1860 to 1869. He died in 1871, during the
Franco-Prussian War. While standing on a balcony at the Louvre, observing events, he saw the Prussian Army invading the museum and suffered a fatal heart attack. He was found there by his staff, several hours later. He was buried in
Montmartre Cemetery. ==Gallery==