José Maria Veloso Salgado was born in Galicia (Spain), in Melón (a small town in the province of Ourense, not far from the Portuguese border), where he lived until the age of 10.

Veloso Salgado was accepted to the École des Beaux-Arts, studying there under Alexandre Cabanel, Benjamin-Constant, Jules-Élie Delaunay, Jean-Paul Laurens, and Fernand Cormon.

Around this time, he contacted with painter Jules Breton and his daughter and apprentice Virginie Demont-Breton, as well as her husband, Adrien Demont, who became a close friend of Veloso Salgado's.

After his stay in Paris, Veloso Salgado journeyed to Italy before returning to Lisbon, stopping in Florence, where he studied the primitive painters, made copies of Renaissance works, and painted en plein air.

While in Italy, he made one of his most celebrated works, Jesus — which was considered hors-concours in the 1892 Salon (this painting was lost in 1900 when the ship bringing it back from the Exposition Universelle sank).

From this point on, he regularly participated in big artistic exhibition, both national and international, he was commissioned painting by distinguished personalities and institutions, and accumulated awards and distinctions (Officer of the Order of Saint James of the Sword in 1896, Knight of the French Legion of Honour in 1902, member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences in 1907).