Career
He studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint St. Petersburg. Afterwards he lived for a while in Paris and Algeria but had to return to Russian Empire after the French Revolution of 1848. He fought with the Russian army in the Caucasian War and took part in the Crimean War.
Between 1851 and 1862 he published the Russian Art Leaflet, a periodical which chronicled life in Russia by printing paintings and associated texts.
After 1867 he lived in Berlin.