Her father Gustav Michaelis was a mathematics and physics teacher, who later became a stenography lecturer, while her mother Henriette Louise Lobeck, came from a renowned family of publishers in Berlin.

Soon after, she started working as a sworn translator and interpreter in legal and political matters for the Berlin Municipality and the Prussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

[1] During her early career in Berlin she started writing scholarly works for the Brockhaus publishing house in Leipzig, focusing on Spanish and Italian literature.

Her connection to Portugal grew once she started contributing to the Bibliografia Crítica de História e Literatura (Critic Bibliography of History and Literature), where she gained recognition from prominent Portuguese intellectuals.

Her exchange with Joaquim de Vasconcelos, a collaborator on the journal and founder of Portuguese art history writing, led to a personal and intellectual relationship, culminating in their marriage in 1876 and her move to Porto.