Artist, Hubert Vos was a portrait painter, known for idealized exotic subjects that included Orientals and aboriginal races including pre-Westernized Hawaiians. In Holland, he became a court painter, after studying and painting throughout Europe. He was the first westerner to paint a portrait of the Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi of China. He also did interiors and still lifes, many of them of Chinese porcelains. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, Belgium and Corman in Paris and exhibited widely in Europe including Amsterdam, Paris and Munich. He came to the United States in 1892 as commissioner representing Holland at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893.