Charles C. Curran

William John Whittemore and Charles Courtney Curran met in New York in about 1883 while studying in the studio of Walter Saterlee. Over the course of the mid-1880s they shared studio quarters and attended classes at the National Academy of Design. In the autumn of 1888 they traveled together to Paris, where they attended the Académie Julian. Shortly after their arrival Whittemore depicted his friend painting the Venus de Milo in one of the galleries of the Louvre. Featured in the background of the canvas is the famous Roman copy of the classical Greek sculpture of the Crouching Venus of Tyre, and a Roman sarcophagus depicting the myth of Selene and Endymion. Whittemore's picture directly illustrates how students of the day learned to paint the nude from ancient sculpture.