Background
His father was a parochial school teacher and organist and he received his general education at the Lutheran School in Riga.
His father was a parochial school teacher and organist and he received his general education at the Lutheran School in Riga.
His name is rendered in a confusing variety of ways, too numerous to list here. In 1850, he went to Saint St. Petersburg to study drafting and lithography. While there, he began taking evening classes at the Imperial Academy of Arts and was admitted as a full student two years later.
His primary instructor was Pyotr Basin.
He soon began creating icons in the local churches (notably, the Cathedral of the Intercession in Yelabuga), as well as creating sketches of folk life on behalf of the Russian Geographical Society. In 1863, he was awarded a fellowship that allowed him to travel in Germany, although he eventually settled in Paris and exhibited at the Salon in 1868.
Upon his return to Saint St. Petersburg in 1872, he was named an Academician and later elevated to a professorship. Over the next few years, he finished work started in Paris and focused on paintings of a religious nature.
Unfortunately, that same year, he began displaying symptoms of tuberculosis.
On the advice of his doctors, he sought out climates with fresher, healthier air than Saint St. Petersburg, but the disease progressed and, after living in several locations, he died in Switzerland, aged only forty-five.
He was also a member of the "Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions" (Peredvizhniki).
