[1] At the age of sixteen, when his father died, he packed his bags and went to Saint Petersburg, hoping to enter the Imperial Academy of Arts.

[2] While there, the Academy awarded him a professorship in history painting for his depiction of Horace reading his satires to Gaius Maecenas.

[1] He also came into contact with a group of dissident artists who would later be known as the Peredvizhniki; which inspired him to paint a series of genre works on peasant life.

Despite having lived in Italy for most of his life, he left over 300 paintings and drawings and the equivalent of 400 Rubles to establish an art school in Shadrinsk.

[citation needed] A versatile artist Fyodor Bronnikov was a great master of portrait painting.