Marie de Launay grew up in France, where he received his education at home and later at the École des beaux-arts presumably as an élève libre (Ersoy, 2015, p. 107.)
In the 1850ies, he settled in Istanbul where he started a bureaucratic career in the Pera municipality as assistant engineer, archivist, and draughtsman. Later, he obtained a secretarial position in the Ministry of Trade and Public Works. In the 1860s and 1870s, he was a central figure of the Ottoman representations at world's fairs. While for the 1867 world's fair in Paris, he was a member of the international jury and author of La Turquie à l'Exposition Universelle de 1867, at the Vienna world’s fair he was involved as the secretary of the Ottoman exhibition commission (Ersoy 2015, p. 109). Furthermore, he was the author of most parts of the publication Die Ottomanische Baukunst / L’Architecture ottomane / Uṣūl-i Miʿmāriyye-i ʿUsmaniyye (e.g., the historical overview and the eight essay on certain Ottoman buildings), as well as editor and author of Elbise-i ʿUsmaniyye / Les Costumes Populaires de la Turquie; both books published on the occasion of the Vienna world’s fair (Ersoy, 2015, p. 107/109).

Launay, M. de (1867). La Turquie à l'exposition universelle de 1867, edited by Salaheddin Bey. Libraire Hachette & Cie.

Launay, M. de (1873). Die Ottomanische Baukunst / L’Architecture ottomane / Uṣūl-i Miʿmāriyye-i ʿUsmaniyye. Imprimerie et lithographie centrales.

Launay, M. de, Bonkowsky Bey (1880–81). Bursa ve Civarı. Kırk Ambar Matba’ası.

Ersoy, A. (2015). Architecture and the Late Ottoman Historical Imaginary. Reconfiguring the Architectural Past in a Modernizing Empire. Ashgate.