Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov was born on May, 20th (on June, 1st) 1844 into a multi-child and well-educated noble family in Petersburg.

After finishing a science course in a Petrozavodsk grammar school he enrolled in a class in the Imperial Academy of Arts.

Having simultaneously graduated from the law faculty at a university in 1872, Polenov went abroad as a beneficiary pensioner of the Arts Academy. He visited Vienna, Munich, Venice, Florence and Naples, lived in Paris long enough and painted there, among others, the canvass Arrest of Countess d’Etremon, which gained him the rank of an academician in 1876. After returning to Russia the same year he soon went to the Russian-Turkish war, throughout which he was attached to the head quarters of consisted, for drawing and the writing of its episodes at the main apartment of the crown prince, the future Emperor Alexander III for drawing and painting war scenes. After the end of the war he settled in Moscow. In 1884 he traveled from Moscow to Constantinople, Palestine, Syria and Egypt. In 1879 he became the member of the Peredvizhniki art group (Association of Itinerants).

In 1890 the artist acquired a small estate of Byohovo in the Tula Province, on the high bank of River Oka and built a house with his own original design in a quiet place, amidst pinewood. The estate with art studios was named Borok. Polenov worked there very fruitfully.

The artist died at the age of 83 years on July, 18th, 1927 in his domain and was buried at the village cemetery in Byohovo on the steep bank of Oka, where he had enjoyed making etudes so much.

His estate Borok has been renamed into Polenovo and is now housing the State Memorial Historical-Art and Natural Museum of Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov.