Edmond François Paul Pottier, an archaeologist and art historian, was regarded as a pioneer in the study of Ancient Greek pottery and was instrumental in the creation of the Corpus vasorum antiquorum. Pottier's father was a civil engineer, and he was born in Saarbrücken, Rhineland. In addition to studying at the École Normale Supérieure and the École d'Athènes, where he completed his thesis on the chronology of Athenian archons, he attended the Lycée Condorcet as a student. He organised the inaugural gathering of the Union Académique Internationale, which sought to compile an exhaustive registry of Greek vases housed in national collections across the globe, while serving as a curator at the Louvre. The Corpus vasorum antiquorum was founded as a consequence in 1919, and Pottier created the first fascicule for the Louvre in 1922. The alias Jacques Morel was the pen name of Pottier's wife, a writer who won the Prix Femina in 1912 for her novel "Feuilles Mortes."
