Jean Ubaghs was born in Liège where he studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts and later became a professor at the same Académie. On April 8th, 1886, Ubaghs married Clara Marie Albertine L’hoest from Liège. Ubaghs painted this same Indonesian model more often as well as another model from the Orient. He is not known to have travelled outside Europe or even outside Belgium.