She was born in Porto, Portugal, the youngest of seven children to Portuguese emigrants António Martins de Sousa and Olinda Peres.

They lived in the Quinta da China near the Douro River in a home bought by her father before he died in 1874, when she was four years old.

She began studies at the Fine-Arts Academy of Porto, where she was a pupil of João Marques de Oliveira, who greatly influenced her style.

[1][2] In 1898, she moved to Paris to study painting at the Julian Academy, taking courses with Jean-Paul Laurens and Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant.

Her painting was of a personal and naturalist style, at times with Realism, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism influences.