In January 1906, four mounths after the unveiling of the Prešeren Monument, the sculptor Ivan Zajec left for Paris. Just a few months after his arrival, Zajec exhibited his sculpture The Cossack’s Dream, a high-relief he had made around 1904 in Vienna, at the Paris Salon.

The work’s title and subject matter are symbolist; during the winter a soldier on horseback, sculpted in vivid detail, dreams of his wife and two children, who appear dream-like in the shallow background relief.

The National Gallery keeps three versions of The Cossack’s Dream, two in plaster and a bronze cast. There is also indication of another plaster version that had been destroyed. The latter was the first purchase for the collection of the Ljubljana Magistrate in April 1909, by decision of Mayor Ivan Hribar, and was exhibited as municipal property in 1917 in the first room of the Kresija Gallery. In 1951 the National Gallery had this plaster cast in bronze. The first bronze cast dates to 1906, when Zajc arrived in Paris and had it exhibited there.

Ivan Zajec entered the history of Slovenian sculpture as the first Slovene sculptor to exhibit at the Paris Salon.