5 June 1805
He was born in Saint Petersburg into a noble family. Petr Klodt — a sculptor, the author of the famous horses on the Anichkov Bridge.
Klodt makes better horses than the stallion (Emperor Nicholas I)
Since childhood, he has been passionate about drawing and sculpting. He was especially good at creating realistic sculpts of horses.
At 17, preparing for a military career, he went to train as an artilleryman. In his free time, he picked up a pencil and drew figures of horses.
At 23, he left military service, deciding to devote himself exclusively to sculpture. He entered the Imperial Academy of Arts as an auditor. He worked in the workshop of the renowned foundryman Yekimov, who oversaw the casting of many famous monuments of the early 19th century. Yekimov initiated his student into the secrets of his craft.
At 26, he received his first government commission—a sculptural group of six horses harnessed to the Chariot of Glory (now the Narva Triumphal Arch in St. Petersburg). For this work, the young artist was awarded the title of academician, an apartment, and his own studio. Thus, Klodt gained worldwide fame and the patronage of Nicholas I.
The next commission was for bronze horse sculptures on the Anichkov Bridge, which didn't last long: the emperor sent them as a gift to the Prussian king. Later, copies of "The Horse Tamers" were installed in Peterhof, Strelna, and at the stable yard of the Kuzminki estate near Moscow.
Meanwhile, new bronze statues symbolizing the four stages of horse taming were installed on the Anichkov Bridge. The sculptor spent 20 years of his life on this work. Informal guidebooks swear by a story that he carved the face of his wife's lover onto the genitals of one of the horses.
At 33 he became a professor of sculpture and head of the Foundry Yard of the Imperial Academy of Arts.
In his later years, he created a monument to the fabulist Ivan Krylov in the Summer Garden, as well as a monument to Emperor Nicholas I on St Isaac's Square. The latter was considered a technical marvel at the time—it was the second sculpture in Europe to rest on two points.
He died at the age of 62 at his dacha in Finland while cutting out a cardboard horse for his beloved granddaughter.
