Charles Garabed Atamian (1872-1947) was born in Constantinople. When he was 13, he was sent to Venice to study at an Armenian high school run by the Mekhitarist priests of San Lazarro Monastery.

He showed great interest in painting, thus the school administrators had him enroll in the studio run by the teachers Paoletti and Tagliapietra, with whom he studied until 1894.

Home again in Constantinople, Atamian was hired as a designer in a ceramics studio belonging to the court of the sultan Abd-ul-Hamid, which he left two years later because of the persecution of his people (the Armenians) ordered by the sultan. With great difficulty, he was finally able to flee to Paris in 1897-----where he set up his permanent resi...