Mikhail Kozlovsky

Sculptor, draughtsman, engraver, teacher. Born in St Petersburg in the family of a naval musician called Ivan Kozlovsky (1753). Studied under Nicolas-François Gillet and Anton Losenko at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1764–73). Awarded two silver medals (late 1760s), two minor gold medals (1770, 1772) and a major gold medal and the title of first-class artist (1773). Foreign fellow of the Imperial Academy of Arts in Rome (1774–79) and Paris (1779–80). Elected an honorary member of the Académie de peinture, sculpture et architecture de Marseille (1780). Returned to St Petersburg (1780), where he sculpted reliefs on ancient themes for the Marble Palace (1780–81) and the Concert Hall in the Catherine Park at Tsarskoe Selo (1783–88). Created marble statues of Catherine the Great as Minerva (1784–85) and Vigil of Alexander the Great (1785–88). Lived and worked in Paris (1788–90), where he attended classes at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture and acted as inspector of foreign fellows of the Imperial Academy of Arts. Witnessed the French Revolution (1789), inspiring such allegorical works as Polycrates (1790). Academician (1794), professor (1794), board member (1795), senior professor (1799). Taught sculpture at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1795–1802). Created terracotta studies on themes from the Trojan War (mid-1790s) and addressed subjects from Russian history in such works as Prince Jacob Dolgoruky Tearing Up a Royal Decree (1797) and Hercules on Horseback (1799). Designed the monument to Count Alexander Suvorov on the Field of Mars (1799–1801), Samson Rending the Jaws of the Lion for the Grand Cascade in Peterhof (1800–01) and the tombstones of Petros Melissinos (1800) and Count Sergei Stroganov at the St Alexander Nevsky Monastery (1802). Died suddenly at the age of forty-eight in St Petersburg and buried at the St Alexander Nevsky Monastery (1802). Honoured by posthumous exhibitions at the Russian Museum in Leningrad/St Petersburg (1953, 2007).