Robert learned photography in the late 1840s. In 1853 he photographed Versailles, and Blanquart-Evrard published some of these in Souvenirs de Versailles. Robert joined the Société Française de Photographie in 1855. From 1855 to 1872 he taught photographic chemistry at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées. Robert photographed Sèvres and its surroundings as well as Saint-Cloud, Versailles, and Brittany.