Born in Saint Petersburg in 1887, Jacovleff demonstrated artistic talent from an early age, leading him to enrol at the Imperial Academy of Arts. There, under the tutelage of Dmitry Kardovsky, he honed a meticulous draftsmanship and appreciation for classical form.
Jacovleff’s early works quickly garnered attention. In 1912, his monumental group portrait On Academic Dacha received critical acclaim at the Baltic Exhibition in Malmö. Jacovleff became a pivotal figure in the artistic circle Mir Iskusstva (World of Art) and was close friends with fellow artists such as Vasiliy Shukhaev. Both Jacovleff and Shukhaev were drawn to the formal discipline of the Renaissance Old Masters and collaborated on works such as Self-Portraits (Harlequin and Pierrot).
In 1913, Jacovleff received a scholarship to study abroad for his paintings, which greatly shaped his artistic style. He studied the Old Masters in Italy and Spain, and later travelled through Mongolia, China and Japan. These expeditions yielded a range of sketches, portraits and scenes of daily life, many of which were published in an album.
With the revolution having broken out in Russia, Jacovleff settled in Paris in 1920. He had become renowned for his ethnographic studies, with this reputation leading him to be appointed as the official artist for two Citroën expeditions — one across Africa and the other across Asia. One of Jacovleff’s paintings from the Africa expedition — Aoua, Femme Banda — was sold for £601,250 by Christie’s in 2010.
In 1934, Jacovleff moved to Boston where he served as Director of the Painting Department at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts until 1937. The artist died the following year, having spent his final months in Paris. Today, his artworks feature in major collections such as National Gallery of Art in the United States and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.