For the British naval officer of this name, see Charles Sterling (naval officer) or Capture of HMS Savage

Capture of HMS Savage

The Capture of HMS Savage refers to a naval battle of the Revolutionary War involving an American privateer and a British sloop-of-war. It occurred in September of 1781 off South Carolina and is considered one of the hardest fought single ship actions of the war.-Capture:By 1781 the smaller British...

.

Charles Sterling (5 September 1901, Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

 - 1991) was a Polish art historian mainly active in France.

Aged 19, he fought in the Polish–Soviet War in defence of newly-gained Polish independence and was decorated several times. He then graduated in law in 1924 before turning to art history in Germany, Great Britain and finally in Paris from 1925 to 1928, under the direction of Gaston Brière

Gaston Brière

Gaston Brière was a French art historian and head curator of France's national museums. He specialised in 17th and 18th century French painting and taught a noted course at the École du Louvre from 1912 to 1938...

 at the École du Louvre

École du Louvre

The École du Louvre is an institution of higher education and French Grande École located in the Aile de Flore of the Musée du Louvre in Paris, France, and is dedicated to the study of archaeology, art history, anthropology and epigraphy....

 and at the same time on Henri Focillon

Henri Focillon

Henri Focillon was a French art historian.Director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon. Professor of Art History at the University of Lyon, at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, at the Sorbonne, at the Collège de France and then in the United States, where he went into exile and taught at Yale...

's course at the Sorbonne

Sorbonne

The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...

. He specialised in the French 'primitives' (notably the Moulins Master) and the Caravaggisti

Caravaggisti

The Caravaggisti were stylistic followers of the 16th century Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. His influence on the new Baroque style that eventually emerged from Mannerism was profound. Caravaggio never established a workshop as most other painters did, and thus had no...

. From 1929 to 1961 he was curator of the department of paintings at the Louvre

Louvre

The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

.