It was painted by a great Russian artist Isvan. He graduated from the fine arts academy back in the cold war era. One of my NFL coach buddies paid a bunch for one of his works and I got to know the artist pretty well. I just loved his artwork. I had this about 10 years now, it arrived at my door with a note "a small gift for my friend Dan .. Isvan painted it for me and gave it to me as a gift"