Edgar Chahine was born in 1874, probably in Vienna, to Armenian parents, and was taken as a child to Constantinople, where he lived until he was eighteen.
The name Shahin (Chahine) means “royal falcon’ in Persian. One of Edgar Chahine’s ancestors, an artisan, is said to have got this name because he was so quick at his work.
The family name was probably originally Shahinian; later the Armenian ending -ian was dropped by a not Determined to study art he traveled to Venice, where he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti under the genre painter, Antonio Paoletti and the sculptor, Antonio dal Zotto.
He settled permanently in Paris in 1895.
The artist Edgar Chahine, who captured the high spirit and style of la belle époque so well, also provided one of the most realistic mirrors of the wretchedness of life at the turn of the century.
Taken from: Nouné Yeranosian
