Ivana Kobilica is the most important Slovenian painter and was born on 20 December 1861 in Ljubljana. She studied drawing with Ida Künl in Ljubljana, and privately she also studied French and Italian. At the age of 16, she visited Vienna with her father, who was so impressed by it that she decided to become a painter. After a few years (1879), she actually returned to Vienna, where she copied paintings by the old masters in the gallery of the Vienna Academy. From 1881 to 1891 she studied in Munich, where she took a course at the School of Arts and Crafts.