Félix Charpentier was born in Bollène ( Vaucluse) on January 10th, 1858.

    Very early, his family noticed the talents that would lead to his vocation. Indeed, from the age of seven years, he was already sculpting small wooden figurines and modeling clay which he found in the brickyard where his father worked. At the age of 16, he entered the art college of Avignon and became the pupil of the sculptor Armand.

In 1877, Félix Charpentier left for the capital with a three hundred-franc fortune in his pocket and entered the art college of Paris. He became the pupil of Pierre Cavelier and Amédée Doublemard, who became a close friend for life.             In 1879, he sent his first works to the French Artists' Exhibition. An tireless worker, he exhibited regularly every year except in 1892 (when he was working on the large-scale monument in Avignon commemorating the "Centenary of Reunion of Comtat Venaissin to France") and also during the First World War.

    
     Charpentier's art was  always characterized by the representation of the Nude; he continously sought to express the grace of the female form and the expression of movement  in the male nude, while seeking to respect the balance of the work's composition. In this sense, his art is similar to antique sculpture.  
     About 1882  he met his future wife, Léa Lucas, one of his models and a native of Perche in the Eure et Loir.
     Some years later, the artist  symbolized this happy union by executing the monumental fireplace
"After the thunderstorm" originally surmounted by the group "Apple and Vine", personifying the alliance of southern wine and Percheron cider.