A pupil of Gros and Alexandre-Denis Abel de Pujol (1787-1861), he painted landscapes, historical subjects and genre scenes, in oil and watercolour, and also produced lithographs. Bonington influenced his early work and the Waverley Novels of Sir Walter Scott provided the subjects for several paintings and lithographs in the 1820s. During the course of his career he was also influenced by Venetian and Dutch painting and particularly by French Rococo art of the eighteenth century.

In 1834 and 1837 he painted battle-pieces for Versailles, and in 1841 he decorated part of the ceiling of the library at the Palais du Luxembourg. He also painted scenes of peasant life after spending the period 1843-6 in the Pyrenees on account of ill health.