He had originally planned to have a legal career, but followed the advice of his friend, Diodore Rahoult, a rising local artist, and went to Paris, where he was a pupil of Léon Cogniet. In 1843, he also enrolled at the École de Beaux-Arts. He had his first exhibit at the Salon of 1848. Rahoult introduced him to landscape painting in 1853, and that became his favorite subject after 1870.
He was also a pupil of Jean Achard (whose portrait he painted; now kept in the Museum of Grenoble) and François-Auguste Ravier in Charlieu. The painter, Eugénie Gruyer-Brielman, was his sister-in-law, by her relationship to his wife, Julie Amélie, née Gruyer.
In 1868, he and Rahoult were commissioned to decorate the new Musée-bibliothèque de Grenoble [fr]. He was member of the artists' colony in Proveysieux and was associated a while with École dauphinoise [fr]. His paintings can be seen at the Museum of Grenoble, the Musée dauphinois and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Chambéry. His painting Souvenir de La Grave won an honorable mention at the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris, and was noticed by Maxime Du Camp.
