Russian sculptor. The son of an Imperial Guardsman, he studied from 1764 to 1772 at the Academy of Arts in St Petersburg under Nicolas-François Gillet. After winning a scholarship he continued his training in France and Rome, including a period of study in Paris (1775-84) under Christophe-Gabriel Allegrain. Early in his career he progressed from a Baroque style (e.g. Marsyas, bronze, 1776) to a mixture of Baroque and classical (e.g. Endymion Sleeping, bronze, 1779), becoming predominantly Neo-classical only from the 1790s (e.g. Venus, marble, 1792; all St Petersburg, Russian Museum). His brother Semyon, and his son Sil'vestr were painters. //