From a well-known family of Chios, Greek painter Théodore Ralli or Theodoros Rallis / Θεόδωρος Ράλλης (1852-1909) worked for a brief period in the commercial house of Rallis-Mavroyannis in London, but abandoned his entrepreneurial career and settled permanently in Paris, at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
There he studied painting under the Academic teacher and Orientalist painter Jean-Leon Gerome until approximately 1880.
In 1873 he took part in the Salon des Refuses.