While it is not known exactly when AdolpheFelix Cals began his interest in art, his earliest training came from little known printmakers, who taught Cals engraving, drawing, and how to work from plaster casts in the studio. After working for such men as Anselin, Ponce, and Bosc (copying the works of Francois Boucher or Achille Deveria in lithographs), Cals was introduced by another young student to the academic painter Leon Cogniet (17941880) and entered his atelier at the Ecole des Beaux Arts during the late 1820's.

It is not surprising that Cogniet would expect Cals to study the Masters, for that was the tradition of the atelier, but although Cogniet recognized the talents of his young pupil, he was not pleased with...