Jean-Baptiste Eugène Napoléon Flandin, known as Eugène Flandin, was born in Naples in 1809 and died in Tours in 1889. He was a French Orientalist painter whose drawings and watercolours recorded Algeria, Persia, Mesopotamia and the Near East at a time when Europe was turning towards these regions through archaeology and science. He trained under Horace Vernet.
In 1837 he accompanied the French army to Algeria, an experience that led him to paint scenes of the conquest, such as his Prise de Constantine, shown at the Paris Salon of 1839. That canvas, bought by Louis-Philippe I, was damaged by projectiles during the Revolution of 1848. Although this work briefly brought him close to history painting, most of his output belongs to Orientalism.
In 1840 he travelled to Persia with the architect-archaeologist Pascal Coste on a mission sponsored by the Institut, after the expedition's leader, Édouard de Sercey, was recalled to France. For two and a half years they toured cities such as Isfahan, Shiraz, Persepolis and Hamadan under harsh conditions. For this documentary work he received the Legion of Honour in 1842. In 1844 he returned to Mesopotamia to draw the reliefs and sculptures that Paul Emile Botta was excavating at Dur-Sharrukin, and he published the album Monuments de Ninive in 1850.
His style combines archaeological sketches, portraits, genre scenes and urban views, mostly in watercolour, sometimes heightened with gouache, which he later reworked in oil after returning to France. Among his major publications are the Voyage en Perse, written with Coste, as well as L'Orient and a history of the Knights of Rhodes. In his later years he was mayor of Cerelles and a prefectural councillor in Tours, where a square bears his name.
His legacy lies chiefly in the documentary value of his images of Persia. In 1999 the Iranian director Kioumars Derambakhsh made thirteen films inspired by his drawings.