He is a leading scholar of medieval heraldry and recognized as the first international expert in the field of color. Born in Paris in 1947, he studied at the Sorbonne and the École Nationale des Chartes. He began researching the history of color as an academic subject in 1968 and published his first paper on medieval color in 1977. In 1982, he was appointed Director of Studies in the History and Philology Section at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), where he taught for 28 years on the history and symbolism of color and on medieval animals.
He has been a visiting professor at prestigious European universities such as the University of Lausanne and the University of Geneva, where he held various seminars on the symbols and imagery of European society. A guest member of the Institut de France, he also serves as president of the French Society of Heraldry and Sigillography.
He gained worldwide renown with his 2000 book Blue: The History of a Color, followed by Black: The History of a Color, Green: The History of a Color, Red: The History of a Color, and Yellow: The History of a Color, in which he introduces the history of color enriched by diverse historical facts and in-depth knowledge of the humanities and social sciences. Recently, through works such as The Humanities of Color and Color in Our Memory, he has dedicated himself to sharing his academic findings with the public in a more accessible and engaging way.