Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov was born July 16, 1806 in Saint Petersburg, Russia and died July 3, 1858 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. He was a Russian painter who adhered to the waning tradition of Neoclassicism but found little sympathy with his contemporaries. Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov has been called the master of one work, for it took 20 years to complete his magnum opus The Appearance of Christ Before the People.