Matthew Chizhov

Matthew Afanasyevich Chizhov (Russian: Матвей Афанасьевич Чижов) (1838–1916) was a Russian sculptor.

Chizhov was born the son of a peasant mason on November 10, 1838 in the village of Pudov in the Podolsky District of Moscow Oblast. Chizhov's father had a small workshop and made tombstones for the Moscow German cemetery. Even as a small boy Chizhov made clay figurines of animals, and from the age of eleven he helped his father in his work.

Chizhov studied at Moscow's German School of St. Michael, then attended the Stroganov School of Technical Drawing where he learned sculpting under the guidance of Brovskogo. Brovskogo recommended him to Nikolai Alexandrovich Ramazanov, a professor at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, and advised Ramazanov to take the talented young man into the institution.

There, Chizhov began to systematically study sculpture and quickly showed his adeptness. In 1858, he fashioned a high relief sculpture, "Champions", for which the school awarded him a silver medal. Another high relief, "Agony of the Saviour", also won Chizhov a silver medal.

Ramazanov took on Chizhov as his assistant in the execution of works for the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. Chizhov, working from the drawings and sketches of his mentor, produced for the cathedral the huge high relief sculpture ""Christ's Descent into Hell". He also produced for two other Moscow churches the high reliefs "Assumption" and "Saint Nicholas".

Chizhov was soon invited by Mikhail Mikeshin to participate in the project to create "Millennium of Russia", a large monument erected in Novgorod in 1863. Chizhov created the high relief figures "Heroes", "Enlightenment", and "Statesmen" for this monument.

Chizhov moved to St. Petersburg, where in 1863 he enrolled in the Imperial Academy of Arts, where he studied under Peter Klodt and Nikolai Pimenov. Chizhov soon won two silver medals for sculpting from life and a small gold medal in 1865 for "Kievan riding with a bridle in his hands through the camp of the Pechenegs", a bronze copy of which exists at the Russian Museum in Petersburg.

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