Julia Stigzelius was born in 1840 in Turku archipelago. She began her art studies at the Drawing School of Finnish Art Association in Turku in 1860s, after which she continued her studies first in Stockholm and later in Paris at the famous Académie Julian.
From an early age Julia Stigzelius was interested in landscape painting. The young artist was searching for her own way of expression at the time when European landscape painting began to abandon romanticism in art. Stigzelius' style changed significantly by the summer of 1877, when she traveled to Normandy and ended up as a pupil of her future husband, the famous landscape painter César de Cock.

Marriage with César de Cock provided Julia Stigzelius an opportunity to work and develop as an artist. On the other hand, she was somewhat left in the shadow of her husband’s career and living abroad left her fairly unknown in Finland. After the death of her husband, Julia Stigzelius-de Cock returned to her homeland, where she died in 1923 in Sulkava.