He was the son of a hotel owner. His first drawing lessons were with a local sculptor named Augustin-Phidias Cadet de Beaupré (1800–?) at the Académie de Lille; then took up painting with François Souchon, a student of Jacques Louis David. He went to Paris in 1853, where he adopted the name "Carolus-Duran". In 1859, he had his first exhibition at the Salon. That same year, he began attending the Académie Suisse, where he studied until 1861. One of his early influences was the Realism of Gustave Courbet.