Chlebowski was born in Podolia, the Ukraine, and began his artistic training in St. Petersburg. He visited Munich before moving to Paris where he entered the Beaux-Arts as a student of Jean-Léon Gérôme, painting in the 'Academic tradition with excellent details and a high finish', L. Thornton, The Orientalist Painter-Travellers, 1828-1908, Paris, 1983, p. 258. He settled in Constantinople for 12 years, working for the Sultan Abdul Aziz, painting everyday scenes of Turkish life.

The Yesil Cami or the Green Mosque in Bursa, Western Anatolia was completed in 1422 for Sultan Mehmet I and is known for its magnificent ceramics and purity of style. One of the most beautiful of Ottoman mosques, it was also painted by the Turkish artist Osman Hamdi Bey, another pupil of Gérôme, in his painting Koran Instruction.