Born in 1802 in
Zvenigorod (although other sources say in 1800), Makovsky was the son of Ivan Borisovich Makovsky, a Russified Pole from
Poland-Lithuania who served as a protocol officer in the Court of Noble Guardianship under D. A. Olsufiev. He grew up in Zvenigorod, until the age of eleven mostly in the house of his godfather Vasily Markovich Korotkov. In 1813, he was enrolled in the service of a Zvenigorod magistrate, but when the family moved to the
Dankovsky District Makovsky found himself serving in the district court. While in Dankov, he took drawing lessons from an artist named Naumov. In 1818, he arrived in Moscow, where he spent the rest of his life. There, he became assistant to an accountant in the office of the Commission for the construction of the
Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, a project still in its early stages, and also studied the art of the miniature under K. I. Zil. ==Career==