Daniel Sabater Salabert was born in Valencia Spain on December 13, 1888. He began working in a fan designer's studio before traveling to Madrid, where he was exposed to the work of Spanish masters such as Velazquez, Goya and Ribera. Early in his career he painted military themes, but when he moved to Paris in 1912, where he remained about a year, he was commissioned to paint religious compositions for the convent church of St Vincent-de-Paul, which he executed in luminous colors. On his return to Spain his canvases featured macabre scenes peopled by witches and monsters and his color palette darkened and took on a sickly blue-green tinge.