Jefferson David Chalfant spent two years at the private Académie Julian in Paris, studying figure painting with the academic artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau. This studio view documents the centrality of the nude study to academic practice, which typically rewarded faithfulness to the realist tradition and discouraged artistic invention. Chalfant followed in the footsteps of several generations of American artists who studied the latest fashionable—and marketable—academic styles in Europe.