Nikolai Andreevich Koshelev was a renowned Russian artist, specializing in historical, portrait, and genre painting, as well as graphics and illustration. He also engaged in icon painting and monumental art. Koshelev was a companion of Ivan Kramskoy and received the title of academician in 1873, becoming a professor at the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1878. He was also a member of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society. Among his works are sketches and frescoes for the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, the Church of the Savior on Blood in St. Petersburg, and the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Warsaw.

Nikolai Andreevich was born in 1840 in the village of Sermanka in the Penza region, and spent his childhood in Arzamas. This city housed the painting school of academician A. V. Stupin, but due to a lack of funds, he could not enroll there. Instead, in 1851, he was apprenticed to the painter-craftsman Davydov in Nizhny Novgorod, but this training was not successful. In 1853, he was taken under the wing of a local landowner, and for three years he lived with her family, studying painting independently. In 1856, she took him to the Kazan Art School, where he received several lessons from the Italian artist Botelli. He then worked on the frescoes of the church iconostasis and the walls of the monastery, and in 1860, he entered the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg.

At the Academy, Koshelev initially studied as a free listener, but from 1863 he became a regular student in the historical painting class under the guidance of A. T. Markov and F. A. Bruni. As early as 1862, he received three Small Silver Medals for the painting "The First Number, a Scene from Bureaucratic Life," a study, and a drawing from life, as well as a Large Silver Medal for a study from life. That same year, his painting was exhibited at the academic exhibition.

From 1864, Koshelev worked in the artel of P. A. Krestonosev, created to support Academy students, and participated in icon painting for the Old Ladoga Nikolsky Monastery. After the dissolution of the artel in 1865, he joined the "St. Petersburg Artel of Artists," led by I. N. Kramskoy, which later became the basis for the "Society for the Traveling Art Exhibitions." That same year, he received a commission for illustrations for the publication "Russian History in Pictures," creating over 60 drawings, and received the 2nd prize from the Society for the Encouragement of Artists for the painting "Ofenya-Korobeynik."

Koshelev taught painting and drawing at the Central School of Technical Drawing of Baron A. L. Stieglitz and lectured on art history at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. In the 1880s and 1890s, he was an inspector at the Stroganov School of Art and Industry. Having earned money from the frescoes of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, in 1878 he went abroad, visiting Berlin, Dresden, Frankfurt, Vienna, and Paris.

In 1880-1881, Koshelev lived in Rome, where he worked on the painting "The Burial of Christ." In 1881, he returned to Russia and lived alternately in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In 1894, he became one of the founders of the Nizhny Novgorod Art and Historical Museum, to which he donated several of his works, including the painting "The Burial of Christ" and sketches for the frescoes of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

In 1903, he traveled to Crimea, and in 1911-1912, he participated in organizing the first All-Russian Congress of Artists. The last years of his life remain unknown. Nikolai Andreevich Koshelev passed away in 1918 in Petrograd.