Adolphe Braun (1812-1877) was born in Besançon and spent part of his childhood in Mulhouse, a textile manufacturing centre in the Alsace region. He moved to Paris in 1828 to study decorative design and published a successful collection of floral designs in 1842. The following year he moved back to Mulhouse to become chief designer in the studio of Dollfus-Ausset, which provided patterns for textiles. In 1847 he opened his own studio and a few years later began photographing flowers to aid in the design of new floral patterns.

In 1857, Braun formed a photography studio, Braun et Cie., with his sons, Henri and Gaston. They began to photograph the French countryside and, in the 1860s, using the new carbon print method, well-known works of art at the Louvre and elsewhere. This proved to have a ready market, and Braun focused primarily on art reproductions for the remainder of his career.