Vasily Andreevich Tropinin was born on March, 19th (30), 1776 in the village of Korpovo of the Novgorod Province (nowadays Korpovo Village, Chudovsky District, the Novgorod Region) into the family of a serf, Andrey Ivanovich, who belonged to count Anton Sergeevich Minih. The count gave Andrey Tropinin manumission, but all his family members remained serfs and were given over to Count Morkov as a dowry for Minih’s elder daughter; Andrey Ivanovich was compelled to work for the new owner, who made him the housekeeper.

About 1798 Vasily Tropinin was sent to work as an apprentice of a confectioner, but a cousin of count Morkov convinced to send the young man with inborn talent and propensity for drawing to the Petersburg Academy of Arts as the noncredit student. Vasily studied there under Stepan Shukin. In 1804 he was withdrawn to a new estate of count Morkov — in a village near Podolsk, Ukraine — and replaced his deceased father on the post of the estate keeper. He got married there in 1812 and had a son — Arseny. Till 1821 he mostly lived in Ukraine, and then moved to Moscow together with the Morkovs.

In 1823 at the age of 47 the artist at last received freedom. In September 1823 he presented his paintings The Lace Maker, Poor Old Man and Portrait of Artist E. O. Skotnikov to the Council of Petersburg Academy of Arts and received the rank of an appointed artist. In 1824 for he got the rank of an academician for his Portrait of K.A. Lebereht.

From 1833 Tropinin on a voluntary basis taught pupils of a public art class, which was opened in Moscow (subsequently the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpturing and Architecture). In 1843 he was elected an honorary member of the Moscow art society.

Altogether Vasily Tropinin created more than three thousand portraits. He died on May, 3rd (15) 1857 in Moscow and was buried at the Vagankovsky Cemetery in Moscow.

Museum of Vasily Tropinin and his contemporary Moscow artists in Moscow in 1969.