Napoleon Orda was born in the village of Worocewicze in the Pinsky Uyezd of Minsk Governorate in his father’s manor. His father, Michał Orda, was an impoverished noble of Lithuanian ancestry and the marshal of the powiat of Kobryn. After finishing Svislach gymnasium in 1823, he started mathematical studies at the Imperial University of Vilnius. However, his university career came to an end on August 27, 1826, when he was arrested by the Russian secret police for taking part in a secret student society “Zorzanie”, which was active in Svislach and Białystok gymnasiums. Although he was released soon afterwards, he was expelled from the university and was not allowed to continue his studies.

He travelled through many European countries, including Italy and Switzerland. Finally in 1833, he settled in Paris, where he became one of the prominent members of the Polish diaspora there and one of the close friends of Fryderyk Chopin. He learned to play the piano under the guidance of Chopin and Franz Liszt and wrote several mazurkas, waltzes and polonaises. While in Paris he also studied painting briefly with Pierre Girard and started to portray his long lost motherland in countless sketches.

During the Post-Sevastopolian Thaw in 1856 he was pardoned by tsar Alexander II and was allowed to return home. He was also restored the rights to his village of Varacevičy. In 1859 he requested from tzar and had received back his money that were confiscated together with his estate. In 1862, he moved to Wierzchownia where he served as a manager of general Adam Rzewuski’s domain.

In 1872, Orda started to travel through the lands of the partitioned Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and document its historical landmarks and architecture. During his summer trips throughout the country he made more than 1,000 sketches depicting various towns, cities and historical landscapes. He also depicted landscapes, urban and rural architecture, churches and palaces of the partitioned Commonwealth, which included the regions of present-day Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, as well as several regions of France, Germany, Portugal and Switzerland. His works are pencil sketches tinted with watercolour, gouache and sepia. Between 1872 and 1874 he visited most of the notable castles, manors and towns in Volhynia, Podolia and Ukraine. Until 1877 he documented the historical heritage of Lithuania, Samogitia, Livonia and Belarus. In 1878 and 1879 he made a trip to Galicia, Greater Poland and Royal Prussia and finally in 1880 he portrayed the Congress Poland. Approximately 260 of his sketches were turned into lithographies by Alojzy Misierowicz and published in Warsaw by Maksymilian Fajans in a series of eight albums under the collective title Album of Polish Historical Landscapes (Polish: Album widoków historycznych Polski) between 1873 and 1883.

Orda died on April 26, 1883, in Warsaw, but according to his last will he was buried in his native land, in Ivanava village, near Kobryn in his family crypt. In the 1980s, the cemetery was destroyed by Soviet authorities in order to build a kindergarten in its place. After some time the gravestone from Orda’s tomb was found and moved to a museum in Pinsk.

In 1997, a monument to Orda was erected in the town of his burial by sculptor Ivan Holubieu.

In 2007, the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus issued silver and copper-nickel memory coins, devoted to the 200th anniversary of Orda’s birth. His work of Nesvizh Castle was also placed on the banknote of 100 000 BYR.

In 2010, Google commemorated Orda’s date of birth by placing special logo with his work in Belarusian version of the search service.