As with many artists from this period, Eugene Girardet came from a long line of artisans.  His great-grandfather Samuel Girardet was a bookseller who had 4 sons: Abraham, Abraham-Louis, Alexandre & Charles-Samuel (the grandfather of Eugene), all four sons’ were engravers and lithographers.  Charles-Samuel had three sons: Karl, Edouard-Henri and Paul (Eugene’s father), all three were artists and/or engravers. Paul had four sons: Theodore, Paul-Armand, Jules and Eugene-Alexis, all of whom were also artists and/or engravers.

Unlike his brothers, who studied with Cabanel, Eugene entered the atelier of Gérôme at l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts.  It was there that he learned the Academic traditions and heard tales of Gérôme’s travels through the Middle East. Fascinated with the stories and images Eugene traveled to Algeria and began painting the subject matter that would occupy him for the rest of his life - scenes of nomad life and desert views, in a finely detailed manner.

During the late 1870’s and early 1880’s Eugene exhibited a number of works at the Paris Salon as well as exhibition halls throughout the Continent.  Works in public collections include: Vue d’Alger (Museum in Algiers); Café arabe a Biskra (Basel Museum); Coteau d’Houlgate (La Rochelle); Marchand de café arabe (Paris, Art Moderne); Le tailleur d’El Kantara (Saintes) and Halte dans le desert (Zurich).