# Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/nicolas-toussaint-charlet/
Profile generated: 2026-05-16T22:30:00.000Z
Quality: high confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Birth date: 1792-12-20
- Death date: 1845-12-30
- Nationality: French
- Common media: lithography, watercolor, oil painting, drawing, printmaking

## About Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet

Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet (1792–1845) was a French painter, lithographer, watercolorist, graphic artist, and draftsman recognized especially for his military subjects. Active in the decades following the Napoleonic Wars, Charlet built a substantial body of work depicting soldiers, battle episodes, and the daily realities of army life, capturing both the pageantry and the hardship experienced by French troops. He worked fluently across oil painting, watercolor, ink drawing, and lithographic printmaking, and his images of Napoleon's campaigns and the common soldier circulated widely in nineteenth-century France through numerous printed editions. Charlet also taught and influenced later generations of artists and illustrators. His career is documented in major reference works including Bénézit, Thieme/Becker, and the Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon, and his institutional records are held by the Getty Research Institute, the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

## Common works and media

Common works include lithographs of Napoleonic soldiers, cavalry scenes, and military encampments, as well as watercolor and ink drawings of similar subjects. Charlet also produced genre scenes, figure studies, and caricatures of Parisian life. Individual lithographs and works on paper appear most often at auction, while original oil paintings are comparatively less common. Prints may be found individually or as parts of published series.

## Market and appraisal context

Charlet's work appears regularly at auction, with 337 recorded lots in the Appraisily database. Lithographs and works on paper are the most frequently encountered categories. Valuation factors include the specific medium (original oil or watercolor versus reproductive lithograph), the quality of the impression for prints, subject matter (Napoleonic and military themes are most prominent), condition of the paper or support, provenance history, and whether the work is from a known series or published edition. Many lithographs were produced in large numbers, so rarity should be assessed carefully. Collectors encountering a Charlet work should consider having attribution confirmed, as his style was widely imitated by contemporaries.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine artist identity research with auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. The biographical information on this page draws on library authority files from the Getty ULAN, VIAF, RKD, and the Library of Congress, supplemented by institutional and encyclopedia sources.

## Sources

- Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD): https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/16430
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/66458177/
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1347175
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500019127
- Library of Congress: https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n86024541
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas-Toussaint_Charlet