His father, Antonio, was a Swiss Italian painter and art restorer who relocated to Russia in 1800 to work on a project at Saint Michael's Castle for Tsar Paul I.

[1] At the age of ten, he was enrolled at the Imperial Academy of Arts, where he studied with Alexei Yegorov, Andrey Ivanovich Ivanov and Vasily Shebuyev.

[2] Two years later, it was completed and moved to Saint Petersburg where it was exhibited in one of the halls of the newly restored Winter Palace.

In his efforts to sustain the academic tradition, he began to openly express his dislike for younger artists and was forced to resign in 1871 because of his behavior.

[4] By the time of his death, he was an honorary Professor at the Florence Academy of Fine Arts and the Accademia di San Luca in Rome.