Active: 1853 - 1857
Draftsman, Photographer
French

Achille Devéria, a curator and a lithographer of portraits and genre scenes, was appointed director of the Bibliothèque Nationale’s department of engravings in 1849. Achille taught drawing and lithography to his son, Théodule Devéria, and father and son collaborated on a family portrait album from 1853 until Achille’s death. They applied ink wash to several of the portraits in the album, possibly in preparation for printing lithographs from the photographs. The album photographs by Théodule are dated 1854.

Théodule had a passion for Egyptology, which he shared with his friend, the photographer John Beasley Greene. He studied the Coptic language, joined the Egyptian department of the Musée du Louvre in 1855, and was eventually named assistant curator there. He traveled to Egypt in the late 1850s and 1860s, where he transcribed texts, made drawings, and photographed. A workaholic who was perpetually in poor health, Théodule died at age forty from a “chest malady.”