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Painter, draughtsman, engraver, teacher. Serf of the landowner A. Semenskaya. Studied under Alexei Venetsianov (from 1838), who helped to secure his emancipation from serfdom (1839–40). Extern student of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1840–45), where he studied under Alexander Warnek and Alexei Markov and graduated as a non-class artist (1845). Academician of portraiture (1852). Taught drawing at the Lesnoi and Mezhevoi Institutes (from 1854) and the Vasilyevsky Island and Peter Grammar Schools for Girls (1862–75). Died in St Petersburg and buried at the Smolensk Cemetery (1876).