His father, Matthias Adolf Charlemont, was also a painter, specializing in painting miniature portraits.

His younger brother Hugo Charlemont (1850–1939) was an equally famous impressionist painter.

[1] After graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Charlemont traveled to many countries in central Europe and finally settled in Paris, where he lived for the next thirty years.

[1] The most famous work of Charlemont is The Guardian of the Seraglio, widely known as The Moorish Chief, depicting a Moorish swordsman guarding a seraglio (part of a typical wealthy Arabic villa, where women stayed when strangers entered the house).

[1] In 1899 he won the gold medal at the Exposition Universelle, a World's Fair held in Paris.