A celebrated artist in his day, Dehodencq considered himself the last of the Romantics. He studied under Leon Cogniet at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. Following the French revolution of 1848 he spent five years in Spain, where he became acquainted with the works of Spanish painters Diego Velázquez and Francisco Goya which had a strong influence on his approach to painting.

In 1853 he travelled to Morocco, where for the following ten years he produced many of his most famous paintings depicting scenes of the world he encountered. Dehodencq was the first foreign artist known to have lived in Morocco for an extended number of years. He returned to Paris in 1863 and was awarded the Legion of Honor in 1870.