Born Maria Gorska in Warsaw, Poland (then a sovereign state of Russia), Tamara de Łempicka (1898-1980) has come to be recognized both by her epithet, "Baroness with a Brush", and as icon of the Roaring Twenties.
As the daughter of wealthy parents, she was sent to Lausanne, Switzerland, to attend boarding school as a child - an experience she despised.
During the summer of one of her final years in Lausanne, however, her grandmother took her on a tour of Italy, where she first witnessed the work of Old Masters, an encounter that would ultimately inspire her life-long passion for art.