His right-known operate, The Last Day of Pompeii (1830-1833), is a huge composition equated by Pushkin and Gogol to the best works of Rubens and Van Dyck. It created a sensation inside Italy & constituted Briullov when one of the finest European painters of his day. When completing this operate, he triumphally returned to the Russian capital, in which he manufactured numerous friends among the aristocracy & intellectural elite group & found a high post in the Academy.

When teaching at the Academy (1836-1848) he developed the portrait style which combined a neoclassical simplicity with the romantic tendency that fused well, & his preference for realism was satisfied with an intriguing level of psychological penetration. When he was working on the plafond of St Isaac's Cathedral, his health suddenly deteriorated. Below advice of his doctors, Briullov left Russia for Madeira in 1849 and spent the go trio years of his life around Italy. He is buried at a Cemeterio degli Inglesi in Rome.

His older brother Alexander Briullov (1798-1877) was a notable Neoclassic designer world health organization designed the Mikhailovsky Theatre, Sts. Peter-&-Paul's Lutheran church & Pulkovo Observatory in St Petersburg.