Prince Paolo (Pavel Petrovich) Troubetzkoy was the second son of the Russian diplomat Prince P.I. Troubetzkoy and the American pianist Ada Winans. He spent his childhood in the villa of Ada's parents near lake Lago di Maggiore. There he first began studying sculpture under the Italian artist Daniele Ranzoni. From 1884 he lived in Milan where he studied in various sculpture workshops. The artist worked in his own studio from 1885.
The artist visited Russia for the first time in 1883 and settled in St. Petersburg in 1897 where he became a member of the famous artist group "The World of Art". He worked in Moscow from 1898 until 1906 and was Professor of the Moscow Art College of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. In Russia Troubetzkoy created more than 50 works. Among his friends and models were Isaak Levitan, Fedor Shaliapin, S. Witte, S. Botkin and Leo Tolstoy. From 1899 until 1906 the artist worked on an equestrian monument of Tsar Alexander III, which was set up in St. Petersburg in 1909.
From the late 1880’s Troubetzkoy regularly participated in all the major European exhibitions: the Berlin Secession, Paris Salon, exhibitions in Venice, Munich, Dresden, Vienna, and Rome. He lived in Paris from 1906 until 1914 and during this time often visited Italy, Sweden, England and Russia.
In 1911-12 Troubetzkoy lived in the United States visiting there again in 1914 when he was forced to stay with the advent of war in Europe. He lived in Hollywood portraying many of the movie stars. In 1921 he moved back to Paris, and from 1932 until his death in 1938 the artist lived permanently in Intra, Lago di Maggiore, which was his native town. It was during this time that Troubetzkoy who himself was greatly influenced by the work of Auguste Rodin early on in his career began teaching and influenced Rembrandt Bugatti, who would later became a great sculptor in his own right.