Pavle "Paja" Jovanović (; ; 16 June 1859 – 30 November 1957) was a Serbian realist painter who painted more than 1,100 works including: The Wounded Montenegrin (1882), Decorating of the Bride (1886), The Takovo Uprising (1894), Migration of the Serbs (1896) and The Proclamation of Dušan's Law Codex (1900). As one of the best European painters of oriental scenes, Paja at the end of the 19th century turned to painting historical events of Serbian history. Paja was also the premier portraitist of Europe after 1905. He painted the Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria 15 times, he painted royalty, major industrialists, scientists, bankers, oil barons and monopolists, including certain heirs to the Standard Oil fortune in the United States of America. He was a very sought-after portraitist world-wide, which made him incredibly wealthy in his lifetime. Many European and international museums carry his works, signed under various names including: Paul Joanowitch in the National Gallery of Victoria and also two portraits in the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Paul Joanowits, Paul Ivanovitch, Paul Joanovitch, Paul Joanovitsch, P. Joanowitsch and others. Biography Paja Jovanović was born in Vršac, Austrian Empire (modern-day Serbia). His father was photographer Stevan Jovanović and his mother was Ernestina née Deot, of French descent. He spent his childhood and early youth in this home town, where he saw the iconostasis of Pavel Đurković and Arsenije Teodorović in the town churches, which would influence his future works. So Paja Jovanović started drawing himself, at first in secret, copying church pictures and spending hours in the empty church that he considered his first teacher. However, at the time when the ecclesiastical municipality in Vršac decided to order new bells for the Cathedral and when it was necessary to create drawings of saints, it became known about his talent. Thus, already at the age of fourteen, Jovanović received his first commission, and, thanks to significant praise, a kind of pass to Vienna and the opportunity to enroll in the Academy. Jovanović's mother died at a young age and his father went on to remarry. He received his first art lectures and knowledge from his teacher Vodecki. His father took him to Vienna in 1875 when he was 15, where he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in 1877 in the class of professor Christian Griepenkerl. He finished the Academy in 1880, attending several important courses taught by Leopold