Samuel Friedrich Halberg

Sculptor, teacher. Son of a Swedish estate manager in Estonia (1787). Studied under Ivan Martos at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1795–1808). Awarded a minor silver medal (1803), major silver medal (1806), minor gold medal (1807), major gold medal and the title of first-class artist (1808). Forced by the Napoleonic Wars to remain at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St Petersburg (1808–18). Travelled to Italy via Stettin, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Trieste and Venice (1818). Lived and worked in Rome (1818–28), where he trained under Bertel Thorvaldsen at the Académie de France and sculpted Boy Blowing Bubbles (1826) and Faun Listening to a Reed Flute (1824–30). Returned to St Petersburg (1828) and taught at the Imperial Academy of Arts (from 1829). Adjutant professor (1829), academician (1831), second-class professor (1831), first-class professor (1836). Sculpted busts of Count Alexei Perovsky (1829), Ivan Krylov (1830), Alexei Olenin (1931), Ivan Martos (1838) and Alexander Pushkin (1837). Submitted designs for the statues of Prince Mikhail Kutuzov and Prince Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly outside the Kazan Cathedral in St Petersburg (1829). Sculpted statues of Tsar Alexander I in Gruzino (1833), St Michael the Archangel and St Gabriel the Archangel for the Trinity Cathedral in St Petersburg (1836), Gavrila Derzhavin in Kazan (1845) and Nikolai Karamzin in Simbirsk (1847). Designed the tombstone of his friend and fellow student Sylvester Schedrin in Sorrento, which was completed after his death by his students Anton Ivanov and Pyotr Stavasser and cast by Baron Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg (1844). Married Elizaveta Demut-Malinovskaya, daughter of rector of sculpture Vasily Demut-Malinovsky (1779–1846). Died in St Petersburg and buried at the Volkovo Lutheran Cemetery (1839).