Théodore Valério (1819–1879), a French artist of Italian origins, entered the studio of Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet in Paris in 1834. The two artists soon became friends, and in 1836 they travelled together on a sketching tour of Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Valério showed precocious talent and made his Salon debut in 1838, at the age of nineteen. In the 1840s and 1850s he made extensive tours of Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Romania, as well as the Balkans and Turkey. On his travels he made numerous studies of the exotic costumes of the people he encountered, as well as genre scenes, and many of these were published in the form of albums of lithographs or etchings. During the Crimean War (1853–1855) he was attached to the Ottoman army of Omar Pasha, and made numerous drawings of the conflict. In later years he settled in Brittany.
Valério's prints can be found in the collections of the British Museum, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC and Princeton University Art Museum.
