![Picture](/uploads/2/5/2/8/25283992/6666801.jpg)
The most vexing missing piece to this story has long been "Who painted the portrait?"
When I finally met James Patterrson, now 81 years old and living not far from me in Washington, DC, he was very excited to tell me who he considered to be the artist of the portrait: Dmitri Nalbandyan, a prolific and highly honored painter of the Soviet era. In fact, Nalbandyan was a sort of court portraitist of the Soviet elite. I was thrilled to get this lead and set about examining as many works by Nalbandyan to see if I could build a case.
My portrait is unsigned, but have a look at the paintings below to see how strongly other Nalbandyan paintings resemble this image of Patterson.
When I finally met James Patterrson, now 81 years old and living not far from me in Washington, DC, he was very excited to tell me who he considered to be the artist of the portrait: Dmitri Nalbandyan, a prolific and highly honored painter of the Soviet era. In fact, Nalbandyan was a sort of court portraitist of the Soviet elite. I was thrilled to get this lead and set about examining as many works by Nalbandyan to see if I could build a case.
My portrait is unsigned, but have a look at the paintings below to see how strongly other Nalbandyan paintings resemble this image of Patterson.