Mikhail Lebedev

Painter, draughtsman. Born in the family of an impoverished serf in Dorpat in Estonia (1811). Freed from serfdom (1816) and studied at the Alexander I Grammar School of Dorpat University (1827–29), where his drawings caught the attention of Count Fyodor von der Pahlen, who secured him an imperial scholarship and a place at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1829). Studied under Maxim Vorobyov (1829–33), graduating with a major gold medal and the title of fourteenth-class artist (1833). Fellow of the Imperial Academy of Arts in Italy (1834–37). Painted landscapes in the environs of Rome, Sorrento, Capri and Naples, where he died of cholera (1837).