Anton Romako (1832, Vienna - 1889, Vienna) was born in Atzgersdorf (now a district of Liesing, Vienna), as an illegitimate son of factory owner Josef Lepper and his housemaid Elisabeth Maria Anna Romako. Anton Romako studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts from 1847, but his teacher, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, considered him talentless. In 1849 he went to Munich to study under Wilhelm Kaulbach and subsequently in Venice, Rome and London. In the early 1850s he studied privately in Vienna under Carl Rahl whom he followed to his private school in 1851 and assisted with the design of the Ruhmeshalle (hall of fame) in Vienna's Arsenal military complex. In 1854 he began travels to Italy and Spain and in 1857 settled in Rome as the favorite po...