Biography

Charles de Tournemine, born Charles-Émile Vacher de Tournemine, October 25, 1812 in Toulon, where he died December 22, 1872, is a French orientalist painter. Grandson of the archaeologist Jean-Charles Vacher de Tournemine (1755-1840), Charles de Tournemine is the son of Bernard Vacher de Tournemine, an officer in the French army, who does not recognize him and just agrees to pass as his uncle. Raised by his mother, Marie Anne Victoire Roubaud, alone in Toulon, he already showed drawing skills. He entered the foam school in 1825 and served on the schooner L'Amaranthe. He traveled the Mediterranean and discovered the cities of Constantinople, Beirut, Tyre, Alexandria, Cyprus, Syria and Tripolitania.