This artwork is by Mihael Stroj (1803-1871), an Austro-Hungarian painter who became known for his paintings of the wealthy. He himself used the name Michael Stroy, perhaps in an attempt to attract a wealthy international clientele or perhaps just to ensure that his name was pronounced correctly. He’s helpfully signed and dated the artwork 1854 on the left hand side, which to be fair does help with the identification.
Stroj had connections with Ljubljana throughout his life, but he settled in the city permanently in 1842 when he married Margareta Berghaus. The couple had five children and that seemed to put an end to Stroj’s travels.
I don’t know much about his subject in this artwork other than it’s Dr Jožef Mader who was a medical doctor in the city. Clearly he had some money to spend on being permanently remembered in the form of an artwork as well as being able to afford quite a nice chair by the looks of it.
It might not be the most important artwork in the country, but I rather liked the snapshot of time that it represented. The middle class were becoming wealthier and wanted to show off their prosperity, something not just limited to the nobility. It was also painted at a time of upheaval across Europe, just after 1848, and the rise of the Slovenian demands for some sort of independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.