Pascal Coste studied architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and between 1817 and 1827 served in Egypt as an architect and engineer. In 1822, the governor of Egypt, Muhammad ʿAli (1769–1849), commissioned him with the construction of two mosques and therefore gave him a permit to enter and study religious buildings (Coste, 1878, p. 30; Volait, 1998, p. [3]).
In 1827, Coste returned to his birthplace Marseille, but continued to travel widely, visiting Tunisia, Italy, Germany, Holland, and Belgium between 1832 and 1838.
In 1837, he published his pioneering book Architecture arabe, ou Monuments du Kaire, an extensive and detailed documentation of the Islamic architecture of Cairo, based on his drawings and studies.
From 1839 to 1842 Coste accompanied the painter Eugène Flandin (1809–1889) to Persia, Turkey, Armenia, Syria and Mesopotamia. The drawings from these travels were published in 1861 under the title of Les Monuments anciens de la Perse. He was interested not only in the architecture of the palaces he visited, but also in the interiors of mosques and harems, and in the faces, clothes and attitudes of the people he met (Bénézit, 2006, p. 22).
His drawings and studies are preserved in the Bibliothèque l’Alcazar in Marseille (see Bideault, 2010).

Bénézit, E. (ed.) (2006). Coste, Pascal. In Dictionary of artists (Vol. 4, p. 22). Paris: Gründ.

Bideault, M. (2010). Fonds Pascal Coste: Bibliothèque de Marseille à vocation régionale, l'Alcazar, Marseille. In L’iconographie du Caire dans les collections patrimoniales françaises. Paris: Publications de l’Institut national d’histoire de l’art. doi:10.4000/books.inha.4751

Coste, P. (1837). Architecture arabe ou Monuments du Kaire, mesurés et dessinés, de 1818 à 1826. Paris: Typographie de Firmin Didot Frères et Compagnie, Imprimeurs de l'Institut de France.

Coste, P. (1878). Mémoires d'un artiste, Notes et souvenirs de voyages (1817- 1877), vol. 1. Marseille: Cayer.

Volait, M. (1998). “Les monuments de l’architecture arabe” vus par Pascal Coste (p. 97–131). Jacobi, D. (dir.), Pascal Coste, toutes les Egypte. Marseille: Parenthèses/Bibliothèque municipale de Marseille. https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00957011