Joan Llimona was born into a family of artists, his brother being Josep was a famous sculptor also within modernism. He began studies in Architecture and Engineering, but soon abandoned them for painting, which he perfected at the La Lonja School, in Barcelona. Later in Rome, between 1880 and 1882 he accompanied his brother, who had won a scholarship.

As early as 1882 he participated in some group exhibitions in Barcelona, which culminated in 1890 in a personal exhibition at the Sala Parés that had an extraordinary acceptance. Deeply influenced by his militant Catholicism, which led him to a confrontation with the writer Raimon Casellas, he painted numerous works of religious content, among which the vault of the Montserrat Mo...