Grottger was born in Ottyniowice,
Eastern Galicia (now Otynevychi, Ukraine) to Jan Józef Grottger, a Polish officer of German origin commanding the
Uhlans' Regiment called
Warszawskie Dzieci (the Warsaw Children) during the failed
November Uprising against the Russians (1831); an amateur artist himself, with many areas of passion. and (briefly)
Juliusz Kossak. In 1852 he embarked on a journey to
Kraków (then in the
Austrian Partition) to attend classes at the
Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts. He studied under
Władysław Łuszczkiewicz and
Wojciech Kornel Stattler. In 1855–1858 he went to the academy in
Vienna and studied under
Karl von Blaas and
Christian Ruben. While in Austria, he travelled to Munich, Venice and to Hungary, where he met his biggest future sponsor and benefactor, Count
Aleksander Pappenheim. He returned to Poland in 1865 upon the collapse of the
January Uprising. , Lviv in
Kraków For a time, Grottger moved between the estates of Polish art lovers in
Podolia, among others the Manor House of
Stanisław Tarnowski in Śniatynka, where he painted numerous pictures for the cycle
Lithuania. In 1866 he met his fiancée Wanda Monné, a young Polish patriot, and spent a lot of time at her house. However, he also developed tuberculosis. In 1867 he went to Paris hoping to make more money; there he visited
Hôtel Lambert, and met with
Jean-Léon Gérôme. As his illness worsened, he went to a sanatorium at
Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda in the
Pyrénées, where he died on 13 December 1867. His body was brought back to Poland by his fiancée and buried at the
Lwów Cemetery on 4 July 1868. ==Artistic career==