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Little is known of his life; his family is believed to have been from Nice originally, and his correspondence is mostly written in French.
In 1850, when Piedmont decided to adopt the use of stamps to prepay for postal service, their first thought was to enquire in Paris about how stamps were designed and manufactured. But the report included a mention of an ongoing dispute over appropriate fees for engravers, so with only a couple months left before the stamps were to on sale, the authorities turned to a local resource in the form of Matraire, whose prior experience was in labels for patent medicines and the general printing needs of Turin.
Matraire did not have facilities for recess printing , so his first stamps were produced by lithography, later ( 1855) switching to letterpress . The authorities being concerned about forgery, he proposed the embossing that was used in the stamps of 1853Events January 19 Giuseppe Verdi's opera Il Trovatore premieres in Rome January 21 Russell L. Hawes patents the envelope folding machine January 29 Napoleon III marries the Spanish Countess Eugenie at the Tuileries March 4 Inauguration of US president Fra and thereafter.
The last stamp produced by Matraire was the 15c blue issued in February 1863Events January-March January 1 Abraham Lincoln delivers the Emancipation Proclamation during the second year of the American Civil War. January 1 The first claim under the Homestead Act is made for a farm in Nebraska January 8 Ground is broken in Sacramen. Thereafter he mostly disappears from history, although he was known to be alive in 18841884 is a leap year starting on Tuesday (click on link to calendar). Events January 4 The Fabian Society is founded in London. February 1 Edition one of the Oxford English Dictionary is published. March 13 The siege of Khartoum, Sudan begins (ends on Janu.