Andrei Ryabushkin was born on October 17 (29), 1861, in the village of Stanichnaya Sloboda in the Borisoglebsky district of the Tambov province. His father, Pyotr Vasilyevich, and older brother Fyodor were engaged in icon painting, and Andrei helped them from a young age. At 14, he became an orphan. His talent was noticed by a student from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, A. K. Preobrazhensky, who brought him to Moscow and helped him enroll in the school. Not completing his studies, Ryabushkin moved to St. Petersburg and in 1882 entered the Academy of Arts, where he studied under Pavel Petrovich Chistyakov. His diploma work was the painting "The Deposition from the Cross" (1890).

Ryabushkin made numerous trips to ancient Russian cities such as Oryol, Tula, Kyiv, Veliky Novgorod, Sergiev Posad, Tver, Yaroslavl, Uglich, Rostov, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod, and Vladimir. These travels awakened his interest in Russian history and folk epics.

In the 1890s, he created commissioned works, drawings, and watercolors for various publications and albums, as well as sketches for the frescoes of St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod. During this period, he painted the historical work "Moscow Street of the 17th Century on a Holiday" (1895).

Russian landscapes hold an important place in his works. In his creations, Ryabushkin relied on the traditions of Russian icon painting and frescoes. In 1901, he created one of his best paintings, "Wedding Procession in Moscow," depicting 17th-century Moscow. In 1913, collector Sergey Shcherbatov sold this painting to the Tretyakov Gallery.

In the last years of his life, the artist became fascinated with illustrations for Russian epics and village themes. During this period, he painted "For Water" (1898), "In the Village" (1902), "The Young Man Joined the Round Dance..." (1902), and "In the Village. For the Service" (1903).

In 1903, Ryabushkin was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Treatment in Switzerland was ineffective. He passed away at the estate of his friend Vasily Vasilyevich Belyaev in the Didvino estate of Novgorod province and was buried in the cemetery in Dobroye Selo.

In 1957, his remains were reburied at the Lyuban City Cemetery, where a monument was erected. 110 paintings by Ryabushkin are held in the State Russian Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery, the A. S. Pushkin All-Russian Museum, the Research Museum of the Russian Academy of Arts, and the Pskov Art Museum. Some works are kept in private collections, including the archive of I. F. Tyumenov, which contains about three hundred drawings by Ryabushkin.