 About her origin Anna joked that she has a temper of Cossack, but a Polish heart ().She lived with her father in Imperial Russia, where her first art teacher was Michał Elwiro Andriolli (Andriolli following the 1863–1864 January Uprising was exiled by the Tsarist government to katorga), before studying music and art in Warsaw where she became a student of Wojciech Gerson in 1877.During this time, she began to exhibit her work at the "Zachęta" Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts (Polish "Towarzystwo Zachęty Sztuk Pięknych") in Warsaw.