Excerpt from Animal and Sporting Artists in America by F. Turner Reuter, Jr. © 2008:

DeLattre was born in St. Omer, France, in 1801. He was largely self-taught. He was a prolific painter of animals and genre pictures, but did not become interested in equine portraiture until his first visit to the United States, beginning in 1836. His initial efforts, in Philadelphia, PA, did not meet with great success; in 1839 he received instruction from Edward Troye (qv) and was able to reverse his early misfortune. After spending much of the 1840s in France DeLattre returned to the United States in 1849 and established himself in Philadelphia as an equestrian artist, showing particular skill in the depiction of the trotting horse. He returned to France permanently in 1856. DeLattre provided illustrations of horses for several sporting publications of the time. His Boston, a portrait of a well-known thoroughbred, appeared in the American Turf Register of December 1842, The Spirit of the Times on 7 March 1840, the Horses of America in 1857, and volume I of Wallace's American Stud Book. Over the course of his career, his signature varied; most common was "DeLattre," although "Delattre" and "DELATTRE" were also used.

In 1852 he exhibited Portrait of a Horse in a Stable, Horse and Dog, Portrait of a Terrier and Portrait of Horses, Goats &c at the National Academy of Design in New York City. The following year he exhibited Portrait of a Horse at the same institution. His work was also shown at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, including such works as his Study of a Donkey in 1849, French Mastiff and Portrait of the Horse Dutchman in 1850, and Trotting Horse Tom in 1854. He also exhibited at the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore and at the Paris Salon in France. His Zachary Taylor and Mac, a painting of a trotting race, was owned by the noted American collector Harry T. Peters of New York City and Orange, VA. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond has his Portrait of the Artist Driving a Pair of Horses, painted in 1852; his Trotter and Driver on Union Raceway, Long Island City, New York, done around 1850; and Chestnut Hunter with Groom, executed in 1836. Several of his works are listed in the 1945 portraiture catalogue of the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond, including Draft Horse, Portsmouth and Dog, and Dutchman. The trotting horse Dutchman was noted for breaking the record for three miles at the Beacon Course in Hoboken, NJ, in 1850. The painting was reproduced by the lithographer Nathaniel Currier (qv), who seven years later went into partnership with James Merritt Ives (qv) to form Currier & Ives (qv).

DeLattre died in Paris, France, in June of 1876.