Jean Francois Raffaelli was born in Paris on April 20, 1850. Before dedicating himself to painting, Raffaelli was an actor and played in the Lyric Theater. He then entered Gerome's studio and made his debut at the Salon of 1870. At first he painted genre pictures and then in 1879 he began doing picturesque views of quaint Paris neighborhoods. After executing a few portraits, notably those of "Edmond de Goncourt"" and "Clemenceau", he resumed to genre painting and made a serious effort to reproduce scenes of middle-class life.

He participated in the get-togethers at the Cafe Guerbois, where Degas, against the wishes of the other members of the group, forced Raffaelli's acceptance at the impressionist exhibitions of 1890 and 1891. He had an admittedly somber palette, which was in absolute contradiction to the typical impressionists and he would later lighten his palette before the end of his life. More careful with his drawing than color, Raffaelli made a preliminary drawing in black and white of most of his canvases.

He also did Paris landscapes and in this manner he reached a large public. His typical scenes of Paris are accurately seen and expressed with spirit. His landscapes of the city's slums and fortifications created their own genre and perpetuate to this day our memory of this strange "no man's land' which has since disappeared.

Raffaelli died in Paris on February 29, 1924.