He began to learn drawing in 1827, at the age of ten, from Fedor Solntsev at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts.

Before departing, he worked on a project at the Winter Palace and participated in creating monuments for Nikolai Karamzin (in Simbirsk), and Gavril Derzhavin (in Kazan).

He took up that position the following year, but soon had to attend to the sudden collapse of a statue he had made for the new Annunciation Church of the Horse Guards Regiment [ru].

For many years, he was employed by the literary journal, Moskvityanin and the Moskovskiye Vedomosti; writing biographies and obituaries of artists as well as notes on art exhibitions.

Among his most familiar works are the bas-reliefs on the pedestal of the Monument to Nicholas I, in Saint Petersburg, some external decorations at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, and several busts; including ones of Fyodor Petrovich Tolstoy, Alexander Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol, which was created from his death mask.