His father was a typographer and typesetter for the Governing Senate.
At the age of ten, after his father's death, he wrote a letter to the Imperial Academy of Arts, requesting admission and pleading poverty.
The letter was successful, and he was admitted.
He was there from 1765 to 1773 and studied under Anton Losenko.

During the years 1773 to 1778, he received a fellowship to study in Italy, going by way of Paris and Avignon and then to Genoa and Bologna, where he was enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna under Gaetano Gandolfi.
He found the teaching there unsatisfactory, however and, after numerous unanswered petitions to the Academy, moved to Rome without permission.
He arrived there only to discover that their "Academy" was really an association of artists with private students.
Thanks to a recommendation from a Russian nobleman residing in Italy, he was able enter the classes of Pompeo Battoni.
 Later, on orders from the Imperial Academy, he finished his course in Bologna, then lived successively in Rome, Venice and Florence.
In 1779, he returned to Saint Petersburg and became a lecturer at the Academy.
Three years later, he was named an Academician for his painting of Hercules burning himself on a pyre.
His father was a typographer and typesetter for the Governing Senate. At the age of ten, after his father's death, he wrote a letter to the Imperial Academy of Arts, requesting admission and pleading poverty. The letter was successful, and he was admitted. He was there from 1765 to 1773 and studied under Anton Losenko.
During the years 1773 to 1778, he received a fellowship to study in Italy, going by way of Paris and Avignon and then to Genoa and Bologna, where he was enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna under Gaetano Gandolfi. He found the teaching there unsatisfactory, however and, after numerous unanswered petitions to the Academy, moved to Rome without permission. He arrived there only to discover that their "Academy" was really an association of artists with private students. Thanks to a recommendation from a Russian nobleman residing in Italy, he was able enter the classes of Pompeo Battoni.  Later, on orders from the Imperial Academy, he finished his course in Bologna, then lived successively in Rome, Venice and Florence. In 1779, he returned to Saint Petersburg and became a lecturer at the Academy. Three years later, he was named an Academician for his painting of Hercules burning himself on a pyre.
Ivan Akimov