Born in Paris, the daughter of Betty von Rothschild and James Mayer de Rothschild, Charlotte de Rothschild was raised by very wealthy parents who were at the center of Parisian culture. They patronized a number of major figures in the arts community including Gioacchino Rossini, Frédéric Chopin, Honoré de Balzac, Eugène Delacroix, and Heinrich Heine. Chopin had become Charlotte's piano teacher in 1841.
Like her father, Charlotte de Rothschild was a collector of art and grew up around her artistic friends. As an adult, Charlotte would count amongst her friends the likes of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Henri Rousseau, and Édouard Manet. Her art purchases included works by Henri Fantin-Latour, Louis-Léopold Boilly, Anthony van Dyck plus a number by Rococo painters Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and François Boucher. However, Charlotte de Rothschild's interest in art went beyond collecting. Talented in her own right, she studied with Nélie Jacquemart and would earn respect for her landscape paintings, watercolors and etchings. She exhibited in 1872 at the Paris Salon as well as at an 1879 exhibition in London, and from 1879 showed work at the annual salon of the Société des aquarellistes français.