Leibl was born in Cologne, where his father was the director of the Cathedral choir. He was apprenticed to a locksmith before beginning his artistic training with the local painter Hermann Becker in 1861. He entered the Munich Academy in 1864, subsequently studying with several artists including Carl Theodor von Piloty.

He set up a group studio in 1869, with Johann Sperl, Theodor Alt, and Rudolf Hirth du Frênes. At about the same time, Gustave Courbet visited Munich to exhibit his work, making a considerable impression on many of the local artists by his demonstrations of alla prima painting directly from nature. 

Leibl’s paintings, which already reflected his admiration for the Dutch old masters, became looser in style, their subjects rendered with thickly brushed paint against dark backgrounds. Source: Wikipedia.