Alexander Andreevich Ivanov was born in 1806 in St. Petersburg. His father, Andrey Ivanov, was an artist, the professor of the Academy of Arts. It was his father who first taught Alexander art, and since 1817 till 1824 he was studying in the Academy of Arts. He was awarded the big gold medal by the Society for the Promotion of Artists and sent to Italy as a pensioner of that society. He went to Italy in 1830 and since 1831 settled in Rome. He traveled all over Italy a lot studying the masterpieces of art.
At about 1833 Ivanov conceived a plan to paint a large picture The Appearance of Christ to the People (1837-1857). This picture truly became the work of his life, he worked on it for twenty years. Over 100 sketches, numerous detail drawings, and large-scale designs, most of them in oil, preceded the monumental composition. Ivanov also painted several genre pictures such as Ave Maria (1839), Bridegroom Buying a Ring for His Fiancee (1839) and very beautiful landscape studies: Olives Near Cemetery in Albano. New Moon (1842-1846), A Tree Branch (1840s-1850s), Via Appia (1845), Water and Stones Near Palacculo (1850s). In 1850s he conceived another grandiose plan to paint a series of large frescos illustrating the Bible, in a palace, specially built for this purpose. In preparation to this project he painted tens of sketches in watercolour with the various scenes from the Bible. Ivanov died from cholera in St. Petersburg in 1858, several months after his return to Russia.
